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ENGLISH CLASSIC SERIES.— Nos. 108-109. 



AN ESSAY 

ox 

Frederic the Great. 



BY 

Thomas Babington Macaulay. 




WITH BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF MACAULAY 

AND WITH 

JZvplanatovv antr 33tograpf)fcal H<atcs 



NEW YORK: 
Maynard, Merrill, & Co., 

43, 45 and 47 East Tenth Street. 



A Complete Course in the Study of English. 



Spelling, Language, Grammar, Composition, Literature. 



Reed's Word Lessons-A Complete Speller. 
Reed's Introductory Language Work, 

Reed & Kellogg's Graded Lessons in English. 
Reed & Kellogg's Higher Lessons in English. 

Reed & Kellogg's One-Book Course in English. 
Kellogg's Text-Book on Rhetoric. 

Kellogg's Text-Book on English Literature. 



In the preparation of this series the authors have had one object 
clearly in view — to so develop the study of the English language as 
to present a complete, progressive course, from the Spelling-Book to 
the study of English Literature. The troublesome contradictions 
which arise in using books arranged by different authors on these 
subjects, and which require much time for explanation in the school- 
room, will be avoided by the use of the above "Complete Course. " 

Teachers are earnestly invited to examine these books. 

MAYNARD, MERRILL & Co., Publishers, 

43, 45 and 47 East Tenth St., New York, 



Copyright, 1893. 






By MAYNARD, MERRILL & CO. 



Life of Macattlay. 

Thomas Babtngton Macattlay, whose father was Zachary 
Macaulay — famous for his advocacy of the abolition of slavery, 
was born at Rothley Temple, in Leicestershire, towards tne end 
of 1800. From his infancy he showed a precocity that was simply 
extraordinary. He not only acquired knowledge rapidly, but he 
possessed a marvelous power of working it up into literary form, 
and his facile pen produced compositions in prose and in verse, 
histories, odes, and hymns. From the time that he was three 
years old ha read incessantly, for the most part lying on the rug 
before the fire with his book on the ground, and a piece of bread 
.and butter in his hand. It is told of him that when a boy of four, 
and on a visit with his father, he was unfortunate enough to have 
a cup of hot coffee overturned on his legs, and when his hostess, 
in her sympathetic kindness, asked shortly after how he was feel- 
ing, he looked up in her face and said, " Thank you, madam, the 
agony is abated." At seven he wrote a compendium of Universal 
History. At eight he was so fired with the Lay and with Mar- 
mion that he wrote three cantos of a poem in imitation of Scott's 
manner, and called it the "Battle of Cheviot." And he had many 
other literary projects, in all of which he showed perfect correct- 
ness both in grammar and in spelling, made his meaning uniformly 
clear, and was scrupulously accurate in his punctuation. 

With all this cleverness he was not conceited. His parents, and 
particularly his mother, were most judicious in their treatment. 
They never encouraged him to display his powers of conversa- 
tion, and they abstained from every kind of remark that might 
help him to think himself different from other boys. One result 
was that throughont his life he was free from literary vanity ; 
another was that he habitually overestimated the knowledge of 
others. When he said in his essays that every schoolboy knew 

3 



4 LIFB OF MACAULAY. 

this and that fact in history, he was judging their information by 
his own vast intellectual stores. 

At the age of twelve, Macaulay was sent to a private school in 
the neighborhood of Cambridge. There he laid the foundation of 
his future scholarship, and though fully occupied with his school 
work — chiefly Latin, Greek, and mathematics — he found time to 
gratify his insatiable thirst for general literature. He read at ran- 
dom and without restraint, but with an apparent partiality for the 
lighter and more attractive books. Poetry and prose fiction re- 
mained throughout his life his favorite reading. On subjects of 
this nature he displayed a most unerring memory, as well as the 
capacity for taking in at a glance the contents of a printed page. 
Whatever caught his fancy he remembered, as well as though he 
had consciously got it by heart. He once said, that if all the cop- 
ies of Paradise Lost and the Pilgrim's Progress were to be de- 
stroyed, he would from memory alone undertake to reproduce 
both. 

In 1818 Macaulay went from school to the university — to Trin- 
ity College, Cambridge. But here the studies were not to his 
mind. He had no liking for mathematics, and was nowhere as a 
mathematical student. His inclination was wholly for literature, 
and he gained various high distinctions in that department. It 
was unfortunate for him that he had no severe discipline in scien- 
tific method ; to his disproportionate partiality for the lighter 
sides of literature must be attributed his want of philosophic 
grasp, his dislike to arduous speculations, and his want of cour- 
age in facing intellectual problems. 

The private life of Cambridge had a much greater influence on 
him than the recognized studies of the place. He made many 
friends. His social qualities and his conversational powers were 
widely exercised and largely developed. He became, too, a brill- 
iant member of the Union Debating Society, and here politics 
claimed his attention. Altogether he gave himself more to the 
enjoyment of all that was stirring around him than to the taking 
of university honors. In 1824, however, he was elected a Fellow, 
and began to take pupils. Further, he sought a wider field for 
his literarv labors, and contributed papers to some of the maga- 



LIFE OF MACAULAY. O 

zines — mostly to Knight's Quarterly Magazine. Chief among these 
contributions are " Ivry," and " Naseby" in spirited verse, and the 
conversation between Cowley and Milton, in as splendid prose. 

When Macaulay went to Cambridge, his father seemed in afflu- 
ent circumstances, but the slave-trade agitation engrossed his time 
and his energy, and by and by there came on the family commer- 
cial ruin. This was a blow to the eldest son, but he bore up 
bravely, brought sunshine and happiness into the depressed 
household, and proceeded to retrieve their position with stern 
fortitude. He ultimately paid off his father's debts. 

Though called to the bar in 1826, he did not take kindly to the 
law, and soon renounced it for an employment more congenial — 
literature. Already in 1824 he had been invited to write for the 
Edinburgh Review, and in August, 1825, appeared in that maga- 
zine his article on Milton, which created a sensation, and made 
the critics aware of the advent of a new literary power. This first 
success he followed up rapidly, and besides giving new life to the 
periodical, he soon gained for himself a name of note. In 1828 
he was made a Commissioner of Bankruptcy, and in 1830 was 
elected M.P. for Calne. In the Reformed Parliament he sat for 
Leeds. 

He entered Parliament at an opportune period, and was in the 
thick of the great Reform conflict. His speeches on the Reform 
Bill raised him to the first rank as an orator, and gained for him 
official posts. It was while burdened with these severe public 
labors that he wrote thirteen (from Montgomery to Pitt) of the 
Edinburgh Revieic Essays. Thus he went on for four years, but 
the narrow circumstances of his family induced him to accept the 
lucrative post of legal adviser to the Supreme Council of India. 
This necessitated his going to India, which was clearly adverse to 
his prospects at home ; yet the certainty of returning with £20,- 
000 saved from his large salary was sufficient inducement to make 
the sacrifice, and he sailed February 15, 1834. 

In India he maintained his reputation as a hard worker. Be- 
sides his official duties as a Member of Council, he undertook the 
additional burden of acting as chairman in two important com- 
mittees, and it is in connection with one of these — the committee 



6 LIFE OF MACAULAT. 

appointed to draw up the new codes — that he has his chief title to 

fame as an Indian statesmen. The New Penal Code was in great 
part his work, and proves his wide acquaintance with English 
Criminal Law. He also took great part in the work of the Com- 
mittee of Public Instruction, and was chiefly instrumental in in- 
troducing English studies among the native population. But he 
was not popular in Calcutta. Certain changes he helped to intro- 
duce roused the feeling of the English residents against him, and 
he was attacked in the most scurrilous way. 

In 1838 he was back in England. Meanwhile he had written 
two more essays for the Edinburgh, one on Mackintosh and one 
on Bacon, and he was hardly home when there appeared another, 
that on Sir W. Temple. After spending the winter in Italy, he 
reviewed in 1839 Mr. Gladstone's book on Church and State, and 
might have settled down to purely literary life, but once more he 
was drawn into politics. Elected as Member for Edinburgh, he 
was soon admitted into the Cabinet as Secretary-at-War to the 
Whig Ministry of Lord Melbourne. The position, however, was 
no gain to Macaulay. He purposed to write ' ' A History of Eng- 
land, from the accession of King James II., down to a time which 
is within the memory of men still living," and his official duties 
forced him to lay this project aside for the present. 

Fortunately Lord Melbourne's ministry did not last long ; it fell 
in 1841, and Macaulay was released from office. Still retaining 
his seat for Edinburgh, and speaking occasionally in the House< 
lie was free to follow his natural bent. 

His leisure hours were given as usual to essay-work for the 
Edinburgh, and he wrote in succession Clive, Hastings, Frederick 
the Great, Addison, Chatham, etc. But in 1844 his connection 
with the Review came to an end, and he wrote no more for the 
Blue and Yellow, as it was called. In 1841 he had put forth a 
volume of poems — the Lays of Ancient Rome — not without mis- 
givings as to the result. But the fresh and vigorous language at 
once carried the volume into popularity, and it had an enormous 
sale. 

On a change of government in 1846, Macaulay, at the request 
of Lord John Russell, again became a Cabinet Minister, this time 



LIFE OF MACAULAY. V 

as Paymaster-General of the Army, and ha\ ing to seek re-election 
from his constituents, went down to Scotland for the purpose. 
After a severe contest, and notwithstanding a growing unpopu- 
larity, he was successful. But at the general election of the fol- 
lowing year the forces in opposition to him redoubled their em 
ergy, and he was defeated. 

This was the real end of his political life. Although pressed 
to contest other seats, he resolutely declined, and for the next 
few years worked ' doggedly ' at his History. In 1848 appeared 
the first two volumes, which had an immense success, 13,000 
copies being sold in less than four months. The same year he 
was elected Lord Rector of Glasgow University. By 1852 the 
people of Edinburgh had repented the rejection of their famous 
Member, and took steps to re-elect him free of expense ; and so 
thoroughly was the scheme carried out that Macaulay, without 
having made a single speech, and without having visited the city, 
was returned triumphantly at the top of the poll. Through the 
length and breadth of the land the news was hailed with satisfac- 
tion, as an act of justice for an undeserved slight in the past. The 
result was very flattering to Macaulay, but he never really re- 
turned to political life as in his younger days. Moreover, forty 
years of incessant intellectual labors had begun to undermine his 
health, and he was now unequal to the fatigues that formerly were 
a pleasure to him. Accordingly in 1856, after having brought out 
the third and fourth volumes of his history, of which in a few 
months 25,000 copies were sold, he resigned his seat, and yield- 
ing too late obedience to all interested in his welfare, gave him- 
self up to the enjoyment of that ease which he had faithfully 
earned. Then in 1857 he was created a Peer — Baron Macaulay of 
Rothley, his birthplace. Still struggling on with his History in 
the intermissions of his malady, he died suddenly on December 28, 
1859. He was only fifty-nine — the victim of an appetite for work, 
insatiable and unfortunately too long ungoverned. 



CRITICISM OF MACAULAY. 

Tiikre is little to notice in Macaulay's vocabulary except its 
copiousness. He lias no eccentricities like De Quincey or Carlyle ; 
lie employs neither slang nor scholastic technicalities, and he 
never coins a new word. He cannot be said to use an excess of 
Latin words, and he is not a purist in the matter of Saxon. His 
command of expression was proportioned to the extraordinary 
compass of his memory. The copiousness appears not so much 
in the Shakespearean form of accumulating synonyms one upon 
another as in a profuse way of repeating a thought in several 
different sentences. This is especially noticeable in the opening 
passages of some of his essays. 

Macaulay's is a style that may truly be called " artificial " from 
his excessive use of striking artifices of style — balanced sentences, 
abrupt transitions, and pointed figures of speech. The peculiarities 
of the mechanism of his style are expressed in such general terms 
as "abrupt," "pointed," "oratorical." His sentences have the 
compact finish produced by the frequent occurrence of the periodic 
arrangement. He is not uniformly periodic ; he often prefers a 
loose structure, and he very rarely has recourse to the forced 
inversions that we find occasionally in De Quincey. Yet there is 
a sufficient interspersion of periodic arrangements to produce an 
impression of firmness. . . . 

Macaulay's composition is as far from being abstruse as printed 
matter can well be. One can trace in his writing a constant effort 
to make himself intelligible to the meanest capacity. He loves to 
dazzle and to argue, but above everything else he is anxious to be 
understood. His ideal evidently is to turn a subject over on every 
side, to place it in all lights, and to address himself to every 
variety of prejudice and preoccupation in his audience." — William 
Mi i do. 

8 




FREDERIC THE GREAT. 



Frederic the Great and Ms Times. Edited, with an Introduction, 
by Thomas Campbell, Esq. 2 vols., 8vo. London, 1842. 

This work, which has the high honor of being introduced to 
the world by the author of Lochiel and Hohenlinclen, is not 
wholly unworthy of so distinguished a chaperon. It pro- 
fesses, indeed, to be no more than a compilation ; but it is an 
exceedingly amusing compilation, and we shall be glad to 5 
have more of it. The narrative comes down at present only 
to the commencement of the Seven Years' War, and therefore 
does not comprise the most interesting portion of Frederic's 
reign. 

It may not be unacceptable to our readers that we should ic 
take this opportunity of presenting them with a slight sketch 
of the life of the greatest king that has, in modern times, suc- 
ceeded by right of birth to a throne. It may, we fear, be 
impossible to compress so long and eventful a story within the 
limits which we must prescribe to ourselves. Should we be 15 
compelled to break off, we may perhaps, when the continua- 
tion of this work appears, return to the subject. 

7. Seven Years' War. The war of Frederic the Great of Prussia, 
assisted by England, against Austria, Saxony, Russia, France, and Sweden. 
The war lasted from 1756-1763, 



10 FREDERIC THE GREAT. 

The Prussian monarchy, the youngest of the great European 
states, but in population and revenue the fifth among them, 
and in art, science, and civilization entitled to the third, if 
not to the second place, sprang from a humble origin. About 
5 the beginning of the fifteenth century, the marquisate of 
Brandenburg was bestowed by the Emperor Sigismund on the 
noble family of Hohenzollern. In the sixteenth cenjury that 
family embraced the Lutheran doctrines. It obtained from 
the King of Poland, early in the seventeenth century, the 

io investiture of the duchy of Prussia. Even after this accession 
of territory, the chiefs of the House of Hohenzollern hardly 
ranked with the Electors of Saxony and Bavaria. The soil of 
Brandenburg was for the most part sterile. Even round 
Berlin, the capital of the province, and round Potsdam, the 

15 favorite residence of the Margraves, the country was a 
desert. In some places, the deep sand could with difficulty be 
forced by assiduous tillage to yield thin crops of rye and oats. 
In other places, the ancient forests, from which the con- 
querors of the Roman empire had descended on the Danube, 

20 remained untouched by the hand of man. Where the soil was 
rich it was generally marshy, and its insalubrity repelled the 
cultivators whom its fertility attracted. Frederic William, 



7. Hohenzollern. In 1410, Sigismund was elected Emperor of Germany, 
with the intriguing help of Frederic, Bnrggrave of Nuremberg. The next 
year Sigismund invested Frederic with the marquisate of Brandenburg, as 
a reward for his share in the imperial election. 

The present Emperor of Germany is a member of the Hohenzollern 
family, as was his grandfather William, who, with the help of Prince Bis- 
marck, united the numerous petty kingdoms, principalities, and duchies of 
Germany into one great Empire in 1871. 

8. Lutheran Doctrines. Lutheranism is the prevailing form of Prot- 
estantism in Germany. There are Lutheran churches in Russia, Holland, 
France, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and the United States. The Reformers 
of the 16th century were called Lutherans by their adversaries. The name 
was afterwards distinctively applied among Protestants to those who took 
part with Martin Luther, particularly in the controversies regarding the 
Lord's Supper. 

12. Electors. In the 13th century the right of election of the German 
Emperor, for a time exercised by all the German princes, was limited to 
the holders of the highest offices in Church and State. Thus there came 
to be seven electors— the electors of Mainz, Treves, and Cologne (ecclesiasti- 
cal), and the Palatinate, Brandenburg, Saxony, and Bohemia. Later Bavaria 
and Hanover became electorates. 

15. Margraves. The Hohenzollern family. The title Margrave is equiv- 
alent to the English marquis. It is derived from Mark (border) and Graf 
(count), and meant originally a keeper of the borders. 



FREDERIC THE GREAT. 11 

called the Great Elector, was the prince to whose policy his 
successors have agreed to ascribe their greatness. He ac- 
quired by the peace of Westphalia several valuable posses- 
sions, and among them the rich city and district of Magde- 
burg ; and he left to his son Frederic a principality as con- 5 
siclerable as any which was not called a kingdom. 

Frederic aspired to the style of royalty. Ostentatious and 
profuse, negligent of his true interests and of his high duties, 
insatiably eager for frivolous distinctions, he added nothing 
to the real weight of the state which he governed : perhaps he 10 
transmitted his inheritance to his children impaired rather 
than augmented in value ; but he succeeded in gaining the 
great object of his life, the title of King. In the year 1700 he 
assumed this new dignity. He had on that occasion to under- 
go all the mortifications which fall to the lot of ambitious 15 
upstarts. Compared with the other crowned heads of Europe, 
he made a figure resembling that which a Nabob or a Com- 
missary, who had bought a title, would make in the company 
of Peers whose ancestors had been attainted for treason 
against the Plantagenets. The envy of the class which 20 
Frederic quitted, and the civil scorn of the class into which he 
intruded himself, were marked in very significant ways. The 
Elector of Saxony at first refused to acknowledge the new 
Majesty. Lewis the Fourteenth looked down on his brother 
King with an air not unlike that with which the count in 25 
Moliere's play regards Monsieur Jourdain, just fresh from the 



3. Peace of Westphalia. Concluded in 1648, and made an end of the 
Thirty Years' War. 

17. Nabob. In Macaulay's day a nabob was an Englishman who, having 
lived in Tndia all his life, returned to his native land to enjoy a. princely 
fortune. The commissaries were English officials in India. They were 
popularly supposed to have amassed vast riches by grinding down the 
natives. 

19. Peers. Hereditary members of the English House of Lords. 

20. Plantagenets. The Plantagenets ruled England from 1154 until 1435. 
The name was first adopted by Geoffrey, Count of Anjou, husband of Matilda, 
the daughter of Henry I., from the sprig of broom (planta genesta) which 
he wore in his helmet. 

26. Monsieur Jourdain. Perhaps the best known comedy of Moliere, 
the great French dramatist, is Le Bourgeois gentilhomiue (1670). Monsieur 
Jourdain, the hero, is an elderly tradesman who, having fallen into a large 
fortune, wishes to educate himself to his new position in society. He en- 
gages dancing-masters, fencing-masters, and so on. Everyone makes fun 



L2 FREDERIC THE GREAT. 

mummery of being made a gentleman. Austria exacted large 
sacrifices in return for her recognition, and at last gave it 
ungraciously. 

Frederic was succeeded by his son, Frederic William, a 
5 prince who must be allowed to have possessed some talents for 
administration, but whose character was disfigured by odious 
vices, and whose eccentricities were such as had never before 
been seen out of a madhouse. He was exact and diligent in 
the transacting of business ; and he was the first who formed 

iothe design of obtaining for Prussia a place among the 
European powers, altogether out of proportion to her extent 
and population, by means of a strong military organization. 
Strict economy enabled him to keep up a peace establishment 
of sixty thousand troops. These troops were disciplined in 

15 such a manner, that, placed beside them, the household regi- 
ments of Versailles and St. James's would have appeared an 
awkward squad. The master of such a force could not but be 
regarded by all his neighbors as a formidable enemy and a 
valuable ally. 

20 But the mind of Frederic TTilliani was so ill regulated, that 
all his inclinations became passions, and all his passions par- 
took of the character of moral and intellectual disease. His 
parsimony degenerated into sordid avarice. His taste for mili- 
tary pomp and order became a mania, like that of a Dutch 

25 burgomaster for tulips, or that of a member of the Roxburghe 
Club for Caxtons. "While the envoys of the Court of Berlin 

of him, and finally two of his young acquaintances induce him to go through 
a long ceremonial, without which, the}" tell him, he can never be a true 
gentleman. One remark of Monsieur Jourdain is especially famous : he 
says he has been talking prose all his life and never knew it until his 
professor told him. 

16. The household regiments of Versailles and St. James. That 
is, the royal body-guards at Versailles, and at St. James' Palace in London. 

S!5. Tulips. In the years 1636 and 1637 there was a mania in Holland for 
tulips, and men speculated in them just as they do now in railroad shares. 
Bulos were sold for enormous sums. For a single tulip bulb the sum of 
$7000 was given. The ownership of a bulb was often divided into shares. 
These extravagances soon ceased, but not until they had involved many 
people in ruin. 

26. Caxtons. The Roxburghe Club was founded in 1812 in London. Its 
object was the reprinting of rare and ancient pieces of literature. The 
members were all noted bibliophiles, and spent their time in searching for 
old books. 

AVilliarn Caxton (1412-1492). The introducer of printing into England. 



FREPERTO THE GREAT. 13 

were in a state of snch squalid poverty as moved the laughter 
of foreign capitals, while the food placed before the princes 
and princesses of the blood-royal of Prussia was too scanty to 
appease hunger, and so bad that even hunger loathed it, no 
price was thought too extravagant for tall recruits. The ambi- 5 
tion of the King was to form a brigade of giants, and every 
country was ransacked by his agents for men above the ordi- 
nary stature. These researches were not confined to Europe. 
No head that towered above the crowd in the bazaars of 
Aleppo, of Cairo, or of Surat, could escape the crimps of Fred- 10 
eric William. One Irishman, more than seven feet high, who 
was picked up in London by the Prussian ambassador, received 
a bounty of near thirteen hundred pounds sterling, very much 
more than the ambassador's salary. This extravagance was 
the more absurd, because a stout youth of five feet eight, who 15 
might have been procured for a few dollars, would in all prob- 
ability have been a much more valuable soldier. But to Fred- 
eric William this huge Irishman was what a brass Oth 0, or a 
Vinegar Bible, is to a collector of a different kind. 

It is remarkable, that though the main end of Frederic Will- 20 
iam's administration was to have a great military force, though 
his reign forms an important epoch in the history of military 
discipline, and though his dominant passion was the love of 
military display, he was yet one of the most pacific of princes. 
We are afraid that his aversion to war was not the effect of 25 
humanity, but was merely one of his thousand whims. His 
feeling about his troops seems to have resembled a miser's 



He learned the art in Belgium, and brought his presses to London in 1474. 
The first book printed was The Game and Playe of Chesse. A few of his 
books ?'e still preserved. 

10. Crimps. It was a military custom of Frederic's time to send out 
recruiting-sergeants or crimps, who would ply their victims with drink and 
then induce them to enlist. Carlyle uses the word as a verb : " Coaxing 
and courting with intent to crimp him " {Miscellanies, iii. 197). 

18. Brass Otho. A brass coin of the time of Otho the Great, Emperor of 
the Holy Roman Empire (912-973). 

19. Vinegar Bible. A Bible published in 1717 in two volumes. The name 
comes from an error in the running-title at St. Luke. ch. xxii., where we read 
" the parable of the vinegar'" instead of "the parable of the vineyard." The 
volume is magnificently printed. Soon after its appearance, however, it 
was discovered to be carelessly and incorrectly edited. There are only five 
copies in existence. It is consequently highly prized by book collectors. 



14 FREDERIC THE GREAT. 

feeling about his money. He loved to collect them, to count 
them, to see them increase ; but he could not find it in his 
heart to break in upon the precious hoard. He looked for- 
ward to some future time when his Patagonian battalions were 
5 to drive hostile infantry before them like sheep : but this 
future time was always receding ; and it is probable that, if 
his life had been prolonged thirty years, his superb army would 
never have seen any harder service than a sham fight in the 
fields near Berlin. But the great military means which he 

10 had collected were destined to be employed by a spirit far 
more daring and inventive than his own. 

Frederic, surnamed the Great, son of Frederic William, was 
born in January 1712. It may safely be pronounced that he 
had received from nature a strong and sharp understanding, 

15 and a rare firmness of temper and intensity of will. As to the 
other parts of his character, it is difficult to say whether they 
are to be ascribed to nature, or to the strange training which 
he underwent. The history of his boyhood is painfully inter- 
esting. Oliver Twist in the parish workhouse, Smike at Dothe- 

20 boys Hall, were petted children when compared with this 
wretched heir-apparent of a crown. The nature of Frederic 
William was hard and bad, and the habit of exercising arbi- 
trary power had made him frightfully savage. His rage con- 
stantly vented itself to right and left in curses and blows. 

25 When his Majesty took a walk, every human being fled before 
him, as if a tiger had broken loose from a menagerie. If he 
met a lady in the street, he gave her a kick, and told her to go 
home and mind her brats. If he saw a clergyman staring at 
the soldiers, he admonished the reverend gentleman to betake 

30 himself to study and prayer, and enforced this pious advice by 
a sound caning, administered on the spot. But it was in his 

4. Patagonian. Mr. Bourne, an American sailor, who was for some 
time a captive among the savage Patagonians, says that their average 
height, is GJ^ feet, while many are over 7 feet tall. 

19. Parish workhouse. See Dickens's Oliver Tirist, which was written 
to expose the cruelties perpetrated on destitute children at the workhouses. 

20. Dotheboys Hall. See Dickens's Nicholas Nickleby. Smike is the 
domestic drudge at the Squeers Academy. Starved and beaten, he be- 
comes broken-spirited and nearly half witted, when Nicholas Niekleby takes 
pity on him and helps him to run away. 



FREDE&IC THE GREAT* 15 

own house that he was most unreasonable and ferocious. His 
palace was hell, and he the most execrable of fiends, a cross be- 
tween Moloch and Puck. His son Frederic and his daughter 
Wilhelmina, afterwards Margravine of Bareuth, were in an es- 
pecial manner objects of his aversion. His own mind was 5 
uncultivated. He despised literature. He hated infidels, 
papists, and metaphysicians, and did not very well understand 
in what they differed from each other. The business of life, 
according to him, was to drill and to be drilled. The recrea- 
tions suited to a prince were to sit in a cloud of tobacco 10 
smoke, to sip Swedish beer between the puffs of the pipe, to 
play backgammon for three halfpence a rubber, to kill wild 
hogs, and to shoot partridges by the thousand. The Prince 
Royal showed little inclination either for the serious employ- 
ments or for the amusements of his father. He shirked the 15 
duties of the parade : he detested the fume of tobacco : he had 
no taste either for backgammon or for field sports. He had 
an exquisite ear, and performed skillfully on the flute. His 
earliest instructors had been French refugees, and they had 
awakened in him a strong passion for French literature and 20 
French society. Frederic William regarded these tastes as 
effeirinate and contemptible, and, by abuse and persecution, 
made them still stronger. Things became worse when the 
Prince Royal attained that time of life at which the great revo- 
lution in the human mind and body takes place. He was 25 
guilty of some youthful indiscretions, which no good and wise 
parent would regard with severity. At a later period he was 
accused, truly or falsely, of vices from which History averts 

3. Moloch. The third in rank of the Satanic hierarchy in Milton's Para- 
> dise Lost. Satan first, Beelzebub second. 

" First Moloch, horrid king besmeared with blood 
Of human sacrifice, and parents' tears." 

The Ammonites sacrificed their children to their brazen idol by laying them 
in his arms. A hot fire was continually kept burning inside the idol, which 
would rapidly burn the bodies to ashes. 

3. Puck. Synonymous with Hobgoblin. Shakespeare in Midsummer- 
Night' 1 s Dream represents him as " a very Shetlander among the gossamer- 
winged, dainty-limbed fairies, strong enough to knock all their heads to- 
gether, a rough, knurly-limbed, fawn-faced, shock-pated, mischievous little 
urchin." 



16 FREDERIC THE GREAT*. 

her eyes, and which even Satire blushes to name, vices such 
that, to borrow the energetic language of Lord Keeper Coven- 
try, k, the depraved nature of man, which of itself carrieth 
man to all other sin, abhorreth them." But the offenses of 
5 his youth were not characterized by any peculiar turpitude. 
They excited, how T ever, transports of rage in the King, who 
hated all faults except those to which he was himself inclined, 
and w T ho conceived that he made ample atonement to Heaven 
for his brutality, by holding the softer passions in detestation. 

io The Prince Royal, too, w T as not one of those who are content to 
take their religion on trust. He asked puzzling questions, 
and brought forward arguments which seemed to savor of 
something different from pure Lutheranism. The King sus- 
pected that his son was inclined to be a heretic of some sort or 

15 other, whether Calvinist or Atheist his Majesty did not very 
well know. The ordinary malignity of Frederic William was 
bad enough. He now T thought malignity a part of his duty as 
a Christian man, and all the conscience that he had stimulated 
his hatred. The flute was broken : the French books were 

20 sent out of the palace : the Prince was kicked and cudgeled, 
and pulled by the hair. At dinner the plates were hurled at 
his head : sometimes he w^as restricted to bread and w T ater : 
sometimes he w T as forced to swallow food so nauseous that he 
could not keep it on his stomach. Once his father knocked 

25 him down, dragged him along the floor to a window, and was 
with difficulty prevented from strangling him with the cord of 
the curtain. The Queen, for the crime of not wishing to see 
her son murdered, w T as subjected to the grossest indignities. 
The Princess Wilhelmina, w r ho took her brother's part, was 

30 treated almost as ill as Mrs. Brownrigg's apprentices. Driven 
to despair, the unhappy youth tried to run away. Then the 
fury of the old tyrant rose to madness. The Prince was an 

2. L.ord Thomas Coventry (1578-1640). An English statesman of great 
repute. 

30. Mrs. Brownrigg's apprentices. In the latter part of the 18th 
century a Mrs. Brown rigg murdered one or more of her apprentices. Later, 
George Canning, the great sratesman, published in the Ant i- Jacobin a poem 
in which Mrs. Brovvnrigg laments her hard fate. Canning's work was a 
parody on one of Robert Southey's early poems. 



FBEDERTC THE GREAT. 17 

officer in the army : his flight was therefore desertion ; and, in 
the moral code of Frederic William, desertion was the highest 
of all crimes. " Desertion," says this royal theologian, in one 
of his half -crazy letters, ' ' is from hell. It is a work of the 
children of the Devil. No child of God conld possibly be gnilty 5 
of it." An accomplice of the Prince, in spite of the recom- 
mendation of a court-martial, was mercilessly put to death. 
It seemed probable that the Prince himself would surfer the 
same fate. It was with difficulty that the intercession of the 
States of Holland, of the Kings of Sweden and Poland, and of 10 
the Emperor of Germany, saved the House of Brandenburg 
from the stain of an unnatural murder. After months of 
cruel suspense, Frederic learned that his life would be spared. 
He remained, however, long a prisoner ; but he was not on 
that account to be pitied. He found in his jailers a tender- 15 
ness which he had never found in his father ; his table was 
not sumptuous, but he had wholesome food in sufficient quan- 
tity to appease hunger : he could read the Henriade without 
being kicked, and could play on his flute without having it 
broken over his head. 20 

When his confinement terminated he was a man. He had 
nearly completed his twenty-first year, and could scarcely be 
kept much longer under the restraints which had made his 
boyhood miserable. Suffering had matured his understanding, 
while it had hardened his heart and soured his temper. He 25 
had learned self-command and dissimulation : he affected to 
conform to some of his father's views, and submissively ac- 
cepted a wife, who was a wife only in name, from his father's 
hand. He also served with credit, though without any oppor- 
tunity of acquiring brilliant distinction, under the command 30 
of Prince Eugene, during a campaign marked by no extraor- 

18. La Henriade. An epic poem by Voltaire (1694-1778). It was published 
fraudulently in an imperfect form as La Li(jue. 

31. Prince Eugene (1663-1 T-i6 ) . One of the great generals of modern 
times. Born in Paris, he was intended for the church, and became known as 
the "little Abbe.'" 1 He had a passion for military glory, however, and soon 
left the church to fight against the Turks. So' great \y did he distinguish 
himself that he was given the command of a regiment of dragoons. After 
this he quickly rose in his chosen profession. The war of the Spanish Suc- 
cession raised his fame to the highest pitch. He participated largely in the 



18 FREDERIC TTTTC GREAT. 

dinary events. He was now permitted to keep a separate 
establishment, and was therefore able to indulge with caution 
his own tastes. Partly in order to conciliate the King, and 
partly, no doubt, from inclination, he gave up a portion of 
5 his time to military and political business, and thus gradually 
acquired such an aptitude for affairs as his most intimate 
associates were not aware that he possessed. 

His favorite abode was at Rheinsberg, near the frontier 
which separates the Prussian dominions from the duchy of 

10 Mecklenburg. Rheinsberg is a fertile and smiling spot, in the 
midst of the sandy waste of the marquisate. The mansion, 
surrounded by woods of oak and beech, looks out upon a 
spacious lake. There Frederic amused himself by laying out 
gardens in regular alleys and intricate mazes, by building 

15 obelisks, temples, and conservatories, and by collecting rare 
fruits and flowers. His retirement was enlivened by a few 
companions, among whom he seems to have preferred those 
who, by birth or extraction, were French. With these in- 
mates he dined and supped well, drank freely, and amused 

20 himself sometimes with concerts, and sometimes with holding 
chapters of a fraternity which he called the Order of Bayard ; 
but literature was his chief resource. 

His education had been entirely French. The long ascend- 
ency which Lewis XIV. had enjoyed, and the eminent merit 

2 5 of the tragic and comic dramatists, of the satirists, and of the 
preachers who had flourished under that magnificent prince, 
had made the French language predominant in Europe. 
Even in countries which had a national literature, and which 
could boast of names greater than those of Racine, of 

victories of Blenheim, Oudenarde. and Malplaquet. Activity, boldness, and 
promptitude in repairing his faults were his distinguishing' characteristics. 
He was no indifferent scholar, and wisely coincided in the opinion of Gus- 
tavus Adolphns that a good Christian always makes a good soldier. His 
collection of books, pictures, and prints is still preserved. 

29. Jean Itacine (1039-1699). A very eminent French dramatist. His 
chief plays are Alexandre, Andromaque, Les Plaideurs. Britannicus, 
Iphigenie, and Phedre. With the usual fate of French authors, he excited a 
strong party against him. which finally induced him to renounce the dra 
matic art. Many years afterward he was persuaded by Madame de Main- 
tenon to write a dramatic piece on a sacred subject. Esther was the result, 
followed closely by Athalie. Besides his dramatic works, Racine was the 



J 



FREDERIC THE GREAT. 19 

Moliere, and of Massillon, in the country of Dante, in the country 
of Cervantes, in the country of Shakespeare and Milton, the in- 
tellectual fashions of Paris had been to a great extent adopted. 
Germany had not yet produced a single master-piece of 
poetry or eloquence. In Germany, therefore, the French taste 5 
reigned without rival and without limit. Every youth of rank 
was taught to speak and write French. That he should speak 
and write his own tongue with politeness, or even with accuracy 
and facility, was regarded as comparatively an unimportant 

author of VHistoire de Port Royal, Idyll e sur la Paix, Epigrams, Letters, 
etc. 

1. Jean Baptiste Poquelin Moliere (1622-1673). A famous French 
comic author and actor. His most celebrated comedies are Les Precieuses 
Ridicules, Le Misanthrope, Tartuffe, and Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme. 
Seldom, if ever, has there been a. more remarkable instance of the triumph 
of genius over the pride of rank. Though only an actor at a time when 
the French nobility were proudest and most exclusive. Moliere was treated 
by them as a friend and companion. Hallam, the eminent critic, says: 
" Shakespeare had the greater genius, but perhaps Moliere has written the 
best comedies. 11 Although Moliere was not a member of the French Acad- 
emy, its learned members after his death placed his bust in their hall, with 
this beautiful inscription : •' Rien ne manque a sa gloire. il manquait d la 
noire " (Nothing is wanting to his glory, but he was wanting to ours). 

1. Jean Baptiste 3Iassillon (1663-1742). A French prelate, and one 
of the greatest preachers of all time. He held all Paris enchained by his 
eloquence. Eventually his fame became so great that it excited the curi- 
osity of Louis XIV. to hear him. He was appointed to preach a course of 
Advent sermons at Versailles. The king was so delighted that he paid him 
this fine compliment: " Father, I have often had my pulpit filled by cele- 
brated orators, with whom I have been greatly pleased ; but whenever I 
hear you, I am much displeased with myself. 1 ' Massillon's works consist 
entirely of sermons and funeral orations. 

1. Dante Aligliieri (1265-1321). The greatest of Italian poets and the 
greatest poetical genius that nourished between the Augustan and the 
Elizabethan ages. The Divina Commedia is his greatest work. 

2. Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (1547-1616). The greatest name in 
Spanish literature is that of the author of the immortal Don Quixote. 
Cervantes came of an ancient family, which was originally from Gallicia. 
He was destined for the ecclesiastical profession, but finding it too slow for 
his venturesome taste, he became a soldier of fortune. Cervantes, unlike 
most men of great genius, was a very courageous man. He distinguished 
himself in several campaigns, but finailj" was taken captive by that ferocious 
corsair Arnaut Marin, who carried him to Algiers, where he was kept in 
bondage for four years. At the end of that time he was ransomed and 
allowed to return to Spain. In 1605 appeared the first part of Don Quixote. 
Cervantes at once attained the greatest celebrity. His book was translated 
into every language of Europe. The most eminent painters, tapestry- 
weavers, engravers, and sculptors were employed in representing the history 
of " the sorrowful knight with the metaphysical countenance.*' Cervantes 
received the most distinguished marks of royal favor. As King Philip III. 
was standing on a balcony of his palace at Madrid he saw a man walking 
outside reading a book, and every now and then bursting into laughter, upon 
which the king remarked, t; This man is either mad, or reading Don Quixote. 1 ' 
Cervantes wrote a series of novels, that is, short stories, which were the 
first written in the Spanish tongue. Besides these, a number of plays, 
among which is the tremendous tragedy Numancia, are due to Cervantes 1 
genius. 



20 FREDEBIC THE GREAT. 

object. Even Frederic William, with all his rugged Saxon 
prejudices, thought it necessary that his children should know 
French, and quite unnecessary that they should be well versed 

in German. The Latin was positively interdicted. "My son," 
5 his Majesty wrote, "shall not learn Latin; and, more than 
that, I will not suffer anybody even to mention such a thing 
to me." One of the preceptors ventured to read the Golden 
Bull in the original with the Prince Royal. Frederic William 
entered the room, and broke out in his usual kingly style. 

J o " Rascal, what are you at there ?" 

"Please your Majesty," answered the preceptor, "I was ex- 
plaining the Golden Bull to his Royal Highness." 

"I'll Golden Bull you, you rascal I" roared the Majesty of 
Prussia. Up went the King's cane, away ran the terrified in- 

15 structor ; and Frederic's classical studies ended forever. He 
now and then affected to quote Latin sentences, and produced 
such exquisitely Ciceronian phrases as these: — u Stante pede 
morire," — "De gustibus non est disputandus," — "Tot verbas 
tot sponclera." Of Italian, he had not enough to read a page 

20 of Metastasio with ease ; and of the Spanish and English, he 
did not, as far as we are aware, understand a single 
word. 

As the highest human compositions to which he had access 
were those of the French writers, it is not strange that his 

25 admiration for those writers should have been unbounded. 
His ambitious and eager temper early prompted him to imitate 
what he admired. The wish, perhaps, dearest to his heart 
was, that he might rank among the masters of French rhetoric 
and poetry. He wrote prose and verse as indefatigably as if 



i 



7. The Golden Bull. The fundamental law of the Holy Roman Empire, 
by which the election of the emperor was intrusted to seven electors. It 
received its name from the gold case which contained the seal. A bull is a 
papal edict. 

20. Pietro lionaventura Metastasio (1G98-1782). A celebrated Italian 
poet, whose Greek name means in English, transmutation. He was called 
thus from the fact that, when a poor child singing in the streets of Rome, 
he attracted the attention of a learned man, who took him to his house and 
educated him. He became in time a famous dramatist and poet. Perhaps 
his best known work is La Clemenza di Tito, which was set to music by 
Mozart in 1790. 



FREDERIC THE GREAT. 21 

he had been a starving hack of Cave or Osborn ; but Nature, 
which had bestowed on him, in a large measure, the talents of 
a captain and of an administrator, had withheld from him 
those higher and rarer gifts, without which industry labors 
in vain to produce immortal eloquence and song. And, in- 5 
deed, had he been blessed with more imagination, wit, and 
fertility of thought, than he appears to have had, he would 
still have been subject to one great disadvantage, which would, 
in all probability, have forever prevented him from taking a 
high place among men of letters. He had not the full com- 10 
mand of any language. There was no machine of thought 
which he could employ with perfect ease, confidence, and free- 
dom. He had German enough to scold his servants, or to give 
the word of command to his grenadiers ; but his grammar and 
pronunciation were extremely bad. He found it difficult to 15 
make out the meaning even of the simplest German poetry. 
On one occasion a version of Racine's Iphigenie was read to 
him. He held the French original in his hand ; but was forced 
to own that, even with such help, he could not understand the 
translation. Yet, though he had neglected his mother tongue 20 
in order to bestow all his attention on French, his French was, 
after all, the French of a foreigner. It was necessary for him 
to have always at his beck some men of letters from Paris to 
point out the solecisms and false rhymes of which, to the last, 
he was frequently guilty. Even had he possessed the poetic 25 
faculty, of which, as far as we can judge, he was utterly desti- 
tute, the want of a language would have prevented him from 
being a great poet. No noble work of imagination, as far as 
we recollect, was ever composed by any man, except in a dia- 
lect which he had learned without remembering how or when, 30 
and which lie had spoken with perfect ease before he had ever 
analyzed its structure. Romans of great abilities wrote Greek 



1. Edward Cave (1691-1782). An English printer and publisher, whose 
chief claim to fame is that Dr. Johnson wrote his Life. He hired poor 
starving poets to write for him. 

1. Francis Osborn (1589-1658). An English miscellaneous writer of 
mediocre genius. 

17. Iphigenie, One of Racine's most famous tragedies. 



22 FREDERIC THE GREAT. 

verses; but how many of those verses have deserved to live? 
Many men of eminent genius have, in modern times, written 
Latin poems; but, as far as we are aware, none of those 
poems, not even Milton's, can be ranked in the first elass of 
5 art, or even very high in the second. It is not strange, 
therefore, that, in the French verses of Frederic, we can find 
nothing beyond the reach of any man of good parts and in- 
dustry, nothing above the level of Newdigate and Seatonian 
poetry. His best pieces may perhaps rank with the worst in 

ioDodsley's collection. In history, he succeeded better. AVe do 
not indeed find, in any part of his voluminous Memoirs, either 
deep reflection or vivid painting. But the narrative is distin- 
guished by clearness, conciseness, good sense, and a certain 
air of truth and simplicity, which is singularly graceful in a 

15 man who, having done great things, sits down to relate them. 

On the whole, however, none of his writings are so agreeable 

to us as his Letters, particularly those which are written with 

earnestness, and are not embroidered with verses. 

It is not strange that a young man devoted to literature, 

20 and acquainted only with the literature of France, should 
have looked with profound veneration on the genius of 
Voltaire. "A man who has never seen the sun," says Oal- 
deron, in one of his charming comedies, ''cannot be blamed 
for thinking that no glory can exceed that of the moon. A 

25 man who has seen neither moon nor sun, cannot be blamed 

8. Oxford and Cambridge Universities offer yearly prizes for poetry. 

10. Robert Dodsley (1703-1764). An English "bookseller, author, and 
editor. He was tlie first collector of old plays and poems. 

22. Francois Marie Arouet de Voltaire (1694-1778). A great French 
writer and satirist. From his youth Voltaire ranged himself in opposition 
to the French government and the accepted religious teachings of the day. - 
At times he was greatly honored in France, but again he would have to flee* 
for his life. His chief claim to literary fame rests on his satires, tales, 
letters, and epigrams. In these the whole spirit of the age saw itself ex- 
pressed with inimitable veracity, grace, wit, and agreeableness. Voltaire 
was a decided theist. He rebuked the philosophy of his age. which tried to 
banish God from th*» universe. His last words were: "I die, worshiping 
God. loving my friends, not hating my enemies, but detesting superstition.*'' 

22. Calderon de la Barea (1600-1683). A celebrated Spanish dramatic 
author. AVhile Iris works abound in interesting, sublime, and natural 
passages, yet there is also much that is absurd or extravagant. H> wrote 
the tragedies The Constant Prince and The Physician of his oiim Honor. 
Hailam says: "His total want of truth to nature, even the ideal nature 
which poetry embodies, justifies the sentence that he does not belong among 
the might)' masters of the dramatic art." 



FREDERIC THE GREAT. 23 

for talking of the unrivaled brightness of the morning star." 
Had Frederic been able to read Homer and Milton, or even 
Virgil and Tasso, his admiration of the Henriade would prove 
that he was utterly destitute of the power of discerning what 
is excellent in art. Had he been familiar with Sophocles or 5 
Shakespeare, we should have expected him to appreciate Zaire 
more justly. Had he been able to study Thucydides and 
Tacitus in the original Greek and Latin, he would have known 
that there were heights in the eloquence of history far beyond 
the reach of the author of the Life of Charles the Twelfth. 10 
But the finest heroic poem, several of the most powerful 
tragedies, and the most brilliant and picturesque historical 
work that Frederic had ever read, were Voltaire's. Such high 
and various excellence moved the young Prince almost to 
adoration. The opinions of Voltaire on religious and philo- 15 
sophical questions had not yet been fully exhibited to the 
public. At a later period, when an exile from his country, 
and at open war with the Church, he spoke out. But when 
Frederic was at Eheinsberg, Voltaire was still a courtier ; and, 
though he could not always curb his petulant wit, he had as 20 
yet published nothing that could exclude him from Versailles, 
and little that a divine of the mild and generous school of 
Grotius and Tillotson might not read with pleasure. In the 
Henriade, in Zaire, and in Alzire, Christian piety is exhibited 



3. Torquato Tasso (J 544-1 595). A celebrated Italian epic poet. His 
greatest work is Gerusalemme Liberata. 

5. Sophocles (b.c. 495-406). The most celebrated tragic poet that Greece 
ever produced. Charles Eliot Norton, the friend of Emerson and Ruskin, 
puts Sophocles second only to Shakespeare. Sophocles formulated the 
rules of the tragic art. His greatest works are Antigone, Philocteies, and 
(Edipus et Colonics. 

6. Zaire. A tragedy by Voltaire, adapted from Shakespeare's Othello. 

7. Thucydides (b.c. 471^396). The first great historian. He has been 
called " the pathfinder of history.' 1 

8. Tacitus (a.d. 61-118). A great Roman historian. Among other 
works he wrote a history of the early Germanic nations, which is invaluable 
to modern scholars. 

10. Charles the Twelfth : by Voltaire. 

23. Hugo Grotius (1583-1645). A famous Dutch philosopher and poet. 
He desired the union of all Christians into one denomination. He was a 
shining: light of toleration in this period of rigorous, bigoted Christianity. 

23. John Tillotson (1630-1694). Archbishop of Canterbury, and chief 
adviser of King William in all matters pertaining to church government. 

24. Henriade, Zaire, and Alzire. Works of Voltaire.., 



24 FREDERIC THE GREAT. 

ill the most amiable form ; and, some years after the period of 
Svhieh we are writing, a Pope condescended to accept the 
dedication of Mahomet. The real sentiments of the poet, 
however, might be clearly perceived by a keen eye through the 
5 decent disguise with which he veiled them, and could not 
escape the sagacity of Frederic, who held similar opinions, 
and had been accustomed to practice similar dissimulation. 

The Prince wrote to his idol in the style of a worshiper ; 
atod Voltaire replied with exquisite grace and address. A 

io correspondence followed, which may be studied with advan- 
tage by those who wish to become proficients in the ignoble 
art of flattery. No man ever paid compliments better than 
Voltaire. His sweetest confectionery had always a delicate, 
yet stimulating flavor, which was delightful to palates wearied 

15 by the coarse preparations of inferior artists. It was only 
from his hand that so much sugar could be swallowed without 
making the swallower sick. Copies of verses, writing-desks, 
trinkets of amber, were exchanged between the friends. 
Frederic confided his writings to Voltaire ; and Voltaire 

20 applauded, as if Frederic had been Racine and Bossuet in 
one. One of his Royal Highness's performances was a refuta- 
tion of Machiavelli. Voltaire undertook to convey it to the 
press. It was entitled the Anti-Machiavel, and was an edify- 
ing homily against rapacity, perfidy, arbitrary government, 

25 unjust war — in short, against almost everything for which its 
author is now remembered among men. 

The old King uttered now and then a ferocious growl at the 
diversions of Rheinsberg. But his health was broken ; his 
end was approaching ; and his vigor was impaired. He had 

30 only one pleasure left, that of seeing tall soldiers. He could 



3. Mahomet. Dedicated to Pope Benedict XIV. 

20. Jacques lienigne Bossuet (1627-1704). A celebrated French prelate 
and preacher. His orations are famous for the beauty and vigor of their 
literary style. 

22. Nicolo Machiavelli (1469 1527), An Italian statesman, writer, and 
diplomatist, whose name became a synonym for perfidy and deceit. He 
was hated by the Florentines, and banished from the city. Macaulay, how- 
ever, says : ''The name of a man, to whose patriotic wisdom an oppressed 
people owed their last chance of emancipation, passed into a proverb of 
infamy.'" 



FREDERIC THE GREAT. 25' 

always be propitiated by a present of a grenadier of six feet- 
four or six feet five ; and such presents were from time to> 
time judiciously offered by his son. 

Early in the year 1740, Frederic William met death with a 
firmness and dignity worthy of a better and wiser man ; and 5- 
Frederic, who had just completed his twenty-eighth year,, 
became King of Prussia. His character was little understood. 
That he had good abilities, indeed, no person who had talked 
with him, or corresponded with him, could doubt. But the 
easy Epicurean life which he had led, his love of good cookery io» 
and good wine, of music, of conversation, of light literature,, 
led many to regard him as a sensual and intellectual volup- 
tuary. His habit of canting about moderation, peace, liberty, 
and the happiness which a good mind derives from the happi- 
ness of others, had imposed on some who should have known 15; 
better. Those who thought best of him, expected a Tele- 
machus after Fenelon's pattern. Others predicted the ap- 
proach of a Medicean age, an age propitious to learning and 
art, and not unpropitious to pleasure. Nobody had the least 
suspicion that a tyrant of extraordinary military and political 2o> 
talents, of industry more extraordinary still, without fear,, 
without faith, and without mercy, had ascended the throne. 
& The disappointment of Falstaff at his old boon-companion's 



10. Epicurean. The followers of Epicurus, the great Greek philosopher, 
believed in taking the greatest possible amount of virtuous pleasure out of life. 

16. Telemaclius. Fenelon draws Telemachus as a model for all men to 
follow — mild, peaceful, just, brave, and high-minded. 

17. Francois de Salignac de Fenelon (1651-1715). A great French 
prelate. Les Aventures de Telemaque (The Adventures of Telemachus) 
was Fenelon's only work which did not deal entirely with religious matters. 
This is one of the most popular works in the French language. Fenelon 

V was universally loved and admired throughout Europe for his nobility of 
character and brilliant mind. 

18. A Medicean age. The Medici family is renowned for the extra- 
ordinary number of powerful statesmen it gave to Italy. Under the rule of 
the Medicis Florence rose to the highest point of success in the arts and 
sciences. 

23. Sir John Falstaff. A famous character in Shakespeare's plays, 
King Henry IV., parts i. and ii., and The Merry Wives of Windsor. In the 
former he is represented as the boon companion of Henry, Prince of Wales; 
a soldier, fat, witty, mendacious, and sensual. In the latter he is in love 
with Mrs. Ford and Mrs. Page, the "Merry Wives." " Falstaff,' ' says 
Schlegel, the great German philosopher and critic, " is the crown of Shake- 
speare's comic invention. He is the most agreeable knave that ever was, 
portrayed," 



26 FREDERIC THE GREAT. 

coronation was not more bitter than that which awaited some 
of the inmates of Rheinsherg. They had long looked forward 
to the accession of their patron, as to the event from which 
their own prosperity and greatness was to date. They had at 
5 last reached the promised land, the land which they had 
figured to themselves as flowing with milk and honey ; and 
they found it a desert. "No more of these fooleries," was 
the short, sharp admonition given by Frederic to one of them. 
It soon became plain that, in the most important points, the 

10 new sovereign bore a strong family likeness to his predecessor. 
There was indeed a wide difference between the father and 
the son as respected extent and rigor of intellect, speculative 
opinions, amusements, studies, outward demeanor. But the 
groundwork of the character was the same in both. To both 

15 were common the love of order, the love of business, the 
military taste, the parsimony, the imperious spirit, the temper 
irritable even to ferocity, the pleasure in the pain and humili- 
ation of others. But these propensities had in Frederic 
William partaken of the general unsoundness of his mind, 

20 and wore a very different aspect when found in company with 
the strong and cultivated understanding of his successor. 
Thus, for example, Frederic was as anxious as any prince 
could be about the efficiency of his army. But this anxiety 
never degenerated into a monomania, like that which led his 

25 father to pay fancy prices for giants. Frederic was as thrifty 
about money as any prince or any private man ought to be. 
But he did not conceive, like his father, that it was worth 
while to eat unwholesome cabbages for the purpose of saving 
four or fixe rixdollars in the year. Frederic was, we fear, as 

30 malevolent as his father ; but Frederic's wit enabled him 
often to show his malevolence in ways more decent than those 
to which his father resorted, and to inflict misery and degra- 
dation by a taunt instead of a blow. Frederic, it is true, by 
no means relinquished his hereditary privilege of kicking and 

35 cudgeling. His practice, however, as to that matter, differed 
in some important respects from his father's. To Frederic 
William, the mere circumstance that any persons whatever, 



FREDERIC THE GREAT. 27 

men, women, or children, Prussians or foreigners, were 
within reach of his toes and of his cane, appeared to be a 
sufficient reason for proceeding to belabor them. Frederic 
required provocation as well as vicinity ; nor was he ever 
known to inflict this paternal species of correction on any but 5 
his born subjects ; thougn on one occasion M. Thiebault had 
reason, during a few seconds, to anticipate the high honor of 
being an exception to this general rule. 

The character of Frederic was still very imperfectly under- 
stood either by his subjects or by his neighbors, when events 10 
occurred which exhibited it in a strong light. A few months 
after his accession died Charles VI., Emperor of Germany, 
the last descendant, in the male line, of the House of Austria. 

Charles left no son, and had, long before his death, re- 
linquished all hopes of male issue. During the latter part of 15 
his life, his principal object had been to secure to his descend- 
ants in the female line the many crowns of the House of 
Hapsburg. With this view, he had promulgated a new law of 
succession, widely celebrated throughout Europe under the 
name of the Pragmatic Sanction. By virtue of this law, his 20 
daughter, the Archduchess Maria Theresa, wife of Francis of 
Loraine, succeeded to the dominions of her ancestors. 

No sovereign has ever taken possession of a throne by a 
clearer title. All the politics of the Austrian cabinet had, dur- 
ing twenty years, been directed to one single end, the settle- 25 
ment of the succession. From every person whose rights 
could be considered as injuriously affected, renunciations in 
the most solemn form had been obtained. The new law had 
been ratified by the Estates of all the kingdoms and principal- 
ities which made up the great Austrian monarchy. England, 30 
France, Spain, Russia, Poland, Prussia, Sweden, Denmark, 
the Germanic body, had bound themselves by treaty to main- 



6. DieudoniiG Thiebault. A French author who had offended Fred- 
eric by one of his books. 

20. Pragmatic Sanction. The term originated in the Byzantine Empire, 
and signified a public and solemn decree by a prince (pra'gmaticos, "busi^ 
nesslike," later li official ,r ). The name is given to five different treaties, 

%\, Maria Theresa. At this time only twenty-four years of age, 



28 FREDERIC THE GREAT. 

tain the Pragmatic Sanction. That instrument was placed 
under the protection of the public faith of the whole civilized 
world. 
Even if no positive stipulations on this subject had existed, 
5 the arrangement was one which no good man would have been 
willing to disturb. It was a peaceable arrangement. It was 
an arrangement acceptable to the great population whose hap- 
piness was chiefly concerned. It was an arrangement which 
made no change in the distribution of power among the states 

10 of Christendom. It was an arrangement which could be set 
aside only by means of a general war ; and, if it were set aside, 
the effect would be, that the equilibrium of Europe would be 
deranged, that the loyal and patriotic feelings of millions 
would be cruelly outraged, and that great provinces which had 

1 S been united for centuries would be torn from each other by 
main force. 

The sovereigns of Europe were, therefore, bound by every 
obligation which those who are intrusted with power over their 
fellow-creatures ought to hold most sacred, to respect and de- 

20 fend the rights of the Archduchess. Her situation and her 
personal qualities were such as might be expected to move the 
mind of any generous man to pity, admiration, and chivalrous 
tenderness. She w r as in her twenty-fourth year. Her form 
was majestic, her features beautiful, her countenance sweet 

25 and animated, her voice musical, her deportment gracious and 
dignified In all domestic relations she was without reproach. 
She was married to a husband whom she loved, and was on 
the point of giving birth to a child, when death deprived her 
of her father. The loss of a parent, and the new cares of 

30 empire, were too much for her in the delicate state of her 
health. Her spirits were depressed, and her cheek lost its 
bloom. Yet it seemed that she had little cause for anxiety. 
It seemed that justice, humanity, and the faith of treaties 
would have their due weight, and that the settlement so 

35 solemnly guaranteed would be quietly carried into effect. 
England, Russia, Poland, and Holland, declared in form their 
intention to adhere to their engagements. The French mm- 



FKEDERIC THE GREAT. 29 

isters made a verbal declaration to the same effect. But from 
no quarter did the young Queen of Hungary receive stronger 
assurances of friendship and support than from the King of 
Prussia. 

Yet the King of Prussia, the Anti-Machiavel, had already 5 
fully determined to commit the great crime of violating his 
plighted faith, of robbing the ally whom he was bound to de- 
fend, and of plunging all Europe into a long, bloody, and 
desolating war ; and all this for no end whatever, except that 
he might extend his dominions, and see his name in the 10 
gazettes. He determined to assemble a great army with speed 
and secrecy, to invade Silesia before Maria Theresa should be 
apprised of his design, and to add that rich province to his 
kingdom. 

We will not condescend to refute at length the pleas which 15 
the compiler of the Memoirs before us has copied from Doctor 
Preuss. They amount to this, that the House of Brandenburg 
had some ancient pretensions to Silesia, and had in the previ- 
ous century been compelled, by hard usage on the part of the 
Court of Vienna, to waive those pretensions. It is certain 20 
that, whoever might originally have been in the right, Prussia 
had submitted. Prince after prince of the House of Branden- 
burg had acquiesced in the existing arrangement. Nay, the 
Court of Berlin had recently been allied with that of Vienna, 
and had guaranteed the integrity of the Austrian states. Is it 25 
not perfectly clear that, if antiquated claims are to be set up 
against recent treaties and long possession, the world can 
never be at peace for a day ? The laws of all nations have 
wisely established a time of limitation, after which titles, how- 
ever illegitimate in their origin, cannot be questioned. It is 3° 
felt by everybody, that to eject a person from his estate on the 
ground of some injustice committed in the time of the Tudors 
would produce all the evils which result from arbitrary confis- 
cation, and would make all property insecure. It concerns the 

5. Anti-Machiavel. See note on Machiavelli, p. 24. 

17. Jean L>avid JErdmann Preuss (1785-1808). A German historian who 
made deep researches into the period of history which Macaulay is con- 
sidering. 



30 FREDERIC THE GREAT. 

commonwealth— so runs the legal maxim — that there be an 

end of litigation. And surely this maxim is at least equally 
applicable to the great commonwealth of states; for in that 
commonwealth litigation means the devastation of provinces, 
the suspension of trade and industry, sieges like those of 
5 Badajoz and St. Sebastian, pitched fields like those of Eylan 
and Borodino. We hold that the transfer of Norway from 
Denmark to Sweden was an im justifiable proceeding ; but 
would the King of Denmark be therefore justified in landing, 
without any new provocation, in Norway, and commencing 

10 military operations there ? The King of Holland thinks, no 
doubt, that he was unjustly deprived of the Belgian provinces. 
Grant that it were so. Would he, therefore, be justified in 
marching with an army on Brussels ? The case against 
Frederic was still stronger, inasmuch as the injustice of which 

15 he complained had been committed more than a century be- 
fore. Nor must it be forgotten that he owed the highest per- 
sonal obligations to the House of Austria. It may be doubted 
whether his life had not been preserved by the intercession of 
the prince whose daughter he was about to plunder. 

20 To do the King justice, he pretended to no more virtue than 
he had. In manifestoes he might, for form's sake, insert some 
idle stories about his antiquated claim on Silesia ; but in his 
conversations and Memoirs he took a very different tone. His 
own words are : "Ambition, interest, the desire of making 

25 people talk about me, carried the day ; and I decided for war." 

Having resolved on this course, he acted with ability and 

vigor. It was impossible wholly to conceal his preparations ; 

for throughout the Prussian territories regiments, gnus, and 

baggage were in motion. The Austrian envoy at Berlin ap- 



5. Badajoz and St. Sebastian. Badajoz iti Spain was taken in 1812 
by Wellington from the French. St. Sebastian, a town at d fortress in the 
north of Spain, was stormed and totally destroyed by Wellington in the 
Peninsular War. 

5. Eylau and Borodino. The murderous battle of Eylau was in 1807, 
between the French under Napoleon, and the Prussians and Russians. 

The battle of Borodino was fought by Napoleon against the Russians near 
Moscow. The Russians had permitted Napoleon to approach Moscow with- 
out a single battle until the battle of Borodino, where the Russians were 
obliged to retire and let the French enter. 



FREDERIC THE GREAT. 31 

prised his court of these facts, and expressed a suspicion of 
Frederic's designs ; but the ministers of Maria Theresa refused 
to give credit to so black an imputation on a young prince 
who was known chiefly by his high professions of integrity and 
philanthropy. " We will not," they wrote, "we cannot, be- 5 
lieve it." 

In the mean time the Prussian forces had been assembled. 
Without any declaration of war, without any demand for 
reparation, in the very act of pouring forth compliments and 
assurances of good- will, Frederic commenced hostilities. 10 
Many thousands of his troops were actually in Silesia before 
the Queen of Hungary knew that he had set up any claim to 
any part of her territories. At length he sent her a message 
which could be regarded only as an insult. If she would but 
let him have Silesia, he would, he said, stand by her against 15 
any power which should try to deprive her of her other domin- 
ions ; as if he was not already bound to stand by her, or as if 
his new promise could be of more value than the old one. 

It was the depth of winter. The cold was severe, and the 
roads heavy with mire. But the Prussians pressed on. Re- 20 
sistance was impossible'. The Austrian army was then neither 
numerous nor efficient. The small portion of that army which 
lay in Silesia was unprepared for hostilities. Glogau was 
blockaded ; Breslau opened its gates ; Ohlau was evacuated. 
A few scattered garrisons still held out ; but the whole open 25 
country was subjugated : no enemy ventured to encounter the 
King in the field ; and, before the end of January 1741, he 
returned to receive the congratulations of his subjects at 
Berlin. 

Had the Silesian question been merely a question between 30 
Frederic and Maria Theresa, it would be impossible to acquit 
the Prussian King of gross perfidy. But when we consider the 
effects which his policy produced, and could not fail to produce, 
on the whole community of civilized nations, we are compelled 
to pronounce a condemnation still more severe. Till he began 35 

23. Glogau, Breslau, Ohlau. Three Silesian fortified towns on the 
river Oder. 



>J FREDERIC THE GREAT. 

the war, it .seemed possible, even probable, that the peace of 
the world would be preserved. The plunder of the great 
Austrian heritage was indeed a strong temptation ; and in 
more than one cabinet ambitious schemes were already medi- 
5 tated. But the treaties by which the Pragmatic Sanction had 
been guaranteed were express and recent. To throw all 
Europe into confusion for a purpose clearly unjust, was no 
light matter. England was true to her engagements. The 
voice of Fleury had always been for peace. He had a con- 

10 science. He was now in extreme old age, and was unwilling, 
after a life which, when his situation was considered, must be 
pronounced singularly pure, to carry the fresh stain of a great 
crime before the tribunal of his God. Even the vain and 
unprincipled Belle-Isle, whose whole life was one wild day- 

15 dream of conquest and spoliation, felt that France, bound as 
she was by solemn stipulations, could not, without disgrace, 
make a direct attack on the Austrian dominions. Charles, 
Elector of Bavaria, pretended that he had a right to a large 
part of the inheritance which the Pragmatic Sanction gave to 

20 the Queen of Hungary ; but he was not sufficiently powerful to 
move without support. It might, therefore, not unreasonably 
be expected that, after a short period of restlessness, all the 
potentates of Christendom would acquiesce in the arrange- 
ments made by the 2ate Emperor. But the selfish rapacity of 

2 5 the King of Prussia gave the signal to his neighbors. His 
example quieted their sense of shame. His success led them 
to underrate the difficulty of dismembering the Austrian 
monarchy. The whole world sprang to arms. On the head 
of Frederic is all the blood which was shed in a war which 

30 raged during many years and in every quarter of the globe, 
the blood of the column of Fontenoy, the blood of the mount- 



9. Andre Hercule de Fleury (1653-1743). A celebrated French states- 
man. He was a cardinal, and had the supreme power from 1726-1743. The 
king, Louis XV., was completely under his dominance. 

14. Charles Louis Auguste, due de Relle Isle (1681-1761). A French 
statesman of great ability. It appears that it was through his influence 
that France became involved in the general war of 1741. 

31. Fontenoy. May 5, 1745. Victory of the French over the allies. 



FREDERIC THE GREAT. 33 

aineers who were slaughtered at Culloden. The evils pro- 
duced by his wickedness were felt in lands where the name of 
Prussia was unknown ; and, in order that he might rob a 
neighbor whom he had promised to defend, black men fought 
on the coast of Coromandel, and red men scalped each other 5 
by the Great Lakes of North America. 

Silesia had been occupied without a battle ; but the Austrian 
troops were advancing to the relief of the fortresses which 
still held out. In the spring Frederic rejoined his army. He 
had seen little of war, and had never commanded any great ic 
body of men in the field. It is not, therefore, strange that 
his first military operations showed little of that skill which, 
at a later period, was the admiration of Europe. What con- 
noisseurs say of some pictures painted by Eaphael in his youth, 
may be said of this campaign. It was in Frederic's early bad 15 
manner. Fortunately for him, the generals to whom he was 
opposed were men of small capacity. The discipline of his 
own troops, particularly of the infantry, was unequaled in 
that age ; and some able and experienced officers were at hand 
to assist him with their advice. Of these, the most distin- 20 
guished was Field-Marshal Schwerin, a brave adventurer of 
Pomeranian extraction, who had served half the governments 
in Europe, had borne the commissions of the States-General of 
Holland and of the Duke of Mecklenburg, had fought under 
Marlborough at Blenheim, and had been with Charles the 25 
Twelfth at Bender. 

Frederic's first battle was fought at Molwitz ; and never did 



1. Culloden. April 16, 1746. Victory of the Duke of Cumberland over 
Lord George Murray and the Pretender. This battle was a perfect mas- 
sac re. 

14= Raphael Sanzio (1483-1520). One of the greatest of Italian painters. 

25. John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough (1650-1722). An Eng- 
lish general, whose military genius has been equalled by few men of 
modern times. By a marriage with an intimate friend of Queen Anne he 
and his wife obtained immense influence over the queen. Marlborough 
gained a number of impoitant victories in the War of the Spanish Succes- 
sion. At Blenheim in Bavaria he utterly crippled the French army, thus 
saving Germany from Louis XIV., who was trying to become master of the 
whole continent of Europe. Marlborough's other great victories were Ra- 
millies in 1706, Oudenarde in 1708, and Malplaquet in 1709. 

26. Charles the Twelfth, of Sweden. He reigned from 1697 to 1718. 
He was obstinate, and in public life under the control of passion. The de- 
cline of the power of Sweden is due to his blind obstinacy. 



34 FREDERIC THE GREAT. 

the career of a great commander open in a more inauspicious 
manner. His army was victorious. Not only, however, did 
he not establish his title to the character of an able general, 
but he was so unfortunate as to make it doubtful whether he 
5 possessed the vulgar courage of a soldier. The cavalry, which 
he commanded in person, was put to flight. Unaccustomed to 
the tumult and carnage of a field of battle, he lost his self- 
possession, and listened too readily to those who urged him to 
save himself. His English gray carried him many miles from 

iothe field, while Schwerin, though wounded in two places, 
manfully upheld the clay. The skill of the old Field-Marshal 
and the steadiness of the Prussian battalions prevailed, and 
the Austrian ararjrwas driven from the field with the loss of 
eight thousand men. 

15 The news was carried late at night to a mill in which the 
King had taken shelter. It gave him a bitter pang. He was 
successful ; but he owed his success to dispositions which others 
had made, and to the valor of men who had fought while he 
was flying. So unpromising was the first appearance of the 

20 greatest warrior of that age ! 

The battle of Molwitz was the signal for a general explosion 
throughout Europe. Bavaria took up arms. France, not yet 
declaring herself a principal in the war, took part in it as an 
ally of Bavaria. The two great statesmen to whom mankind 

25 had owed many years of tranquillity, disappeared about this 
time from the scene, but not till they had both been guilty of 
the weakness of sacrificing their sense of justice and their love 
of peace to the vain hope of preserving their power. Fleury, 
sinking under age and infirmity, was borne down by the ini- 

3opetuosity of Belle-Isle. Walpole retired from the service of 
his ungrateful country to his woods and paintings at Houghton; 
and his power devolved on the daring and eccentric Carteret. 

30. Sir Robert Walpole (1676-1745). A great English statesman. He 
occupied many governmental positions, and for twenty- years was practically 
the only minister. He was much beloved by the people, and entire con- 
fidence' was reposed in him. His "peace-at any-price 11 policy secured to 
England a long period of great prosperitv. 

8& John Carteret, Karl Granville (1690-1763). An able English 
statesman. He was always in opposition to Walpole. " Of all the members 



FREDERIC THE GREAT. 35 

As were the ministers, so were the nations. Thirty years 
during which Europe had, with few interruptions, enjoyed 
repose, had prepared the public mind for great military efforts. 
A new generation had grown up, which could not remember 
the siege of Turin or . the slaughter of Malplaquet ; which 5 
knew war by nothing but its trophies ; and which, while it 
looked with pride on the tapestries at Blenheim, or the statue 
in the Place of Victories, little thought by what privations, by 
what waste of private fortunes, by how many bitter tears, 
conquests must be purchased. ia 

For a time fortune seemed adverse to the Queen of Hungary. 
Frederic invaded Moravia. The French and Bavarians pene- 
trated into Bohemia and were there joined by the Saxons. 
Prague was taken. The Elector of Bavaria was raised by the 
suffrages of his colleagues to the Imperial throne — a throne 15 
which the practice of centuries had almost entitled the House 
of Austria to regard as a hereditary possession. 

Yet was the spirit of the haughty daughter of the Caesars 
unbroken. Hungary was still hers by an unquestionable title; 
and, although her ancestors had found Hungary the most 20 
mutinous of all their kingdoms, she resolved to trust herself 
to the fidelity of a people, rude indeed, turbulent, and impa- 
tient of oppression, but brave, generous, and simple-hearted. 
In the midst of distress and peril she had given birth to a son, 
afterwards the Emperor Joseph the Second. Scarcely had she 25 
risen from her couch, when she hastened to Presburg. There, 
in the sight of an innumerable multitude, she was crowned 
with the crown and robed with the robe of St. Stephen. No 
spectator could restrain his tears when the beautiful young 

of the cabinet, - " says Macaulay, "Carteret was the most eloquent and 
accomplished. His talents for debate were of the first order, and his knowl- 
edge of foreign affairs superior to that of any living statesman." Carteret 
always maintained that Hanover should be governed and protected with as 
much care as England. 

5. Turin. In 1705, in the War of the Spanish Succession Prince Eugene 
took Turin, thus obtaining control of Italy. 

5. Malplaquet. In 1706 Marlborough and Eugene defeated the French 
at Malplaquet. 

28. Robe of St. Stephen. Stephen I. was the first important king of 
Hungary. He was crowned in 1000 a.d., and afterwards was called St. 
Stephen because of his devotion to the church. His iron crown and robe 
were preserved.and used in all the.subsequent coronations. 



36 FBEDERIC THE GREAT. 

mother, still weak from child-bearing, rode, after the fashion 
of her fathers, up the Mount of Defiance, unsheathed the 
ancient sword of state, shook it towards north and south, east 
and west, and, with a glow on her pale face, challenged the 
5 four corners of the world to dispute her rights and those of 
her boy. At the first sitting of the Diet she appeared clad in 
deep mourning for her father, and in pathetic and dignified 
words implored her people to support her just cause. Magnates 
and deputies sprang up, half drew their sabres, and with 

io eager voices vowed to stand by her with their lives and for- 
tunes. Till then, her firmness had never once forsaken her 
before the public eye ; but at that shout she sank down upon 
her throne, and wept aloud. Still more touching was the 
sight when, a few days later, she came again before the Estates 

15 of her realm, and held up before them the little Archdnke in 
her arms. Then it was that the enthusiasm of Hungary broke 
forth into that war-cry which soon resounded throughout 
Europe, "Let us die for our King, Maria Theresa !" 

In the mean time, Frederic was meditating a change of 

20 policy. He had no wish to raise France to supreme power on 
the Continent, at the expense of the House of Hapsburg. His 
first object was to rob the Queen of Hungary. His second 
object was that, if possible, nobody should rob her but himself. 
He had entered into engagements with the powers leagued 

25 against Austria ; but these engagements were in his estimation 
of no more force than the guarantee formerly given to the 
Pragmatic Sanction. His plan now was to secure his share 
of the plunder by betraying Jiis accomplices. Maria Theresa 
was little inclined to listen to any such compromise ; but the 

30 English government represented to her so strongly the neces- 
sity of buying off Frederic, that she agreed to negotiate* 
The negotiation would not, however, have ended in a treaty, 
had not the arms of Frederic been crowned with a second 



2. Mount of Defiance. Tlie Mount of Defiance, also called the Royal 
Mount, is a small eminence near Pi-esburg. 

6. Diet. St. Stephen created a national council, consisting of the lords 
temporal and spiritual and of the knights or lower nobility. This was the 
origin of the later diets. 



FREDERIC THE GREAT. 37 

victory. Prince Charles of Loraine, brother-in-law to Maria 
Theresa, a bold and active, though unfortunate general, 
gave battle to the Prussians at Chotusitz, and was defeated. 
The King was still only a learner of the military art. He ac- 
knowledged, at a later period, that his success on this occasion 5 
was to be attributed, not at all to his own generalship, but 
solely to the valor and steadiness of his troops. He com- 
pletely effaced, however, by his personal courage and energy, 
the stain which Molwitz had left on his reputation. 

A peace, concluded under the English mediation, was the 10 
fruit of this battle. Maria Theresa ceded Silesia : Frederic 
abandoned his allies : Saxony followed his example ; and the 
Queen w T as left at liberty to turn her whole force against 
France and Bavaria. She was everywhere triumphant. The 
French were compelled to evacuate Bohemia, and with diffi- 15 
culty effected their escape. The whole line of their retreat 
might be tracked by the corpses of thousands who had died of 
cold, fatigue, and hunger. Many of those who reached their 
country carried with them the seeds of death. Bavaria was 
overrun by bands of ferocious warriors from that bloody debat- 26 
able land which lies on the frontier between Christendom and 
Islam. The terrible names of the Pandoor, the Croat, and 
the Hussar, then first became familiar to western Europe. 
The unfortunate Charles of Bavaria, vanquished by Austria, 
betrayed by Prussia, driven from his hereditary states, and 25 
neglected by his allies, was hurried by shame and remorse to 
an untimely end. An English army appeared in the heart of 
Germany, and defeated the French at Dettingen. The Aus- 
trian captains already began to talk of completing the work of 
Marlborough and Eugene, and of compelling France to relin- 30 
quish Alsace and the Three Bishoprics. 

The Court of Versailles, in this peril, looked to Frederic for 
help. He had been guilty of two great treasons ; perhaps he 

22. Islam. The countries whose national religion is Mohammedanism. 

22. Pandoor, Croat, and Hussar. Fierce soldiers of Southern Hungary. 

31. Alsace and the Three Bishoprics. By the peace of Westphalia 
France received the three bishoprics of Metz, Toul, and Verdun, and the, 
greater part of Alsac§. 






38 FREDERIC THE GREAT, 

might be induced to commit a third. The Duchess of Cha- 
teauroux then held the chief influence over the feeble Lewis. 
She determined to send an agent to Berlin ; and Voltaire was 
selected for the mission. He eagerly undertook the task ; for, 
5 while his literary fame filled all Europe, he was troubled with 
a childish craving for political distinction. He was vain, and 
not without reason, of his address, and of his insinuating 
eloquence ; and he flattered himself that he possessed bound- 
less influence over the King of Prussia. The truth was that 

10 he knew, as yet, only one corner of Frederic's character. He 
was well acquainted with all the petty vanities and affectations 
•of the poetaster ; but was not aware that these foibles were 
united with all the talents and vices which lead to success in 
active life, and that the unlucky versifier who pestered him 

15 with reams of middling Alexandrines was the most vigilant, 
suspicious, and severe of politicians. 

Voltaire was received with every mark of respect and friend- 
ship, was lodged in the palace, and had a seat daily at the 
royal table. The negotiation was of an extraordinary descrip- 

20 tion. Nothing can be conceived more whimsical than the con- 
ferences which took place between the first literary man and 
the first practical man of the age, whom a strange weakness 
had induced to exchange their parts. The great poet would 
talk of nothing but treaties and guarantees, and the great 

25 King of nothing but metaphors and rhymes. On one occasion 
Voltaire put into his Majesty's hands a paper on the state of 
Europe, and received it back with verses scrawled on the mar- 
gin. In secret they both laughed at each other. Voltaire 
did not spare the King's poems ; and the King has left on 

30 record his opinion of Voltaire's diplomacy: "He had no cre- 
dentials," says Frederic, " and the whole mission was a joke, a 
mere farce." 

But what the influence of Voltaire could not effect, the 
rapid progress of the Austrian arms effected. If it should be 

35 in the power of Maria Theresa and George the Second to dic- 
tate terms of peace to France, what chance was there that 
Prussia would long retain Silesia ? Frederic's conscience told 



FREDERIC THE GREAT. 39 

him that he had acted perfidiously and inhumanly towards the 
Queen of Hungary. That her resentment was strong she had 
given ample proof ; and of her respect for treaties he judged 
by his own. Guarantees, he said, were mere filigree, pretty to 
look at, but too brittle to bear the slightest pressure. He 5 
thought it his safest course to ally himself closely to France, 
and again to attack the Empress Queen. Accordingly, in the 
autumn of 1744, without notice, without any decent pretext, 
he recommenced hostilities, marched through the electorate of 
Saxony without troubling himself about the permission of the 10 
Elector, invaded Bohemia, took Prague, and even menaced 
Vienna. 

It was now that, for the first time, he experienced the incon- 
stancy of fortune. An Austrian army under Charles of Loraine 
threatened his communications with Silesia. Saxony was all 15 
in arms behind him. He found it necessary to save himself by 
a retreat. He afterwards owned that his failure was the natu 
ral effect of his own blunders. No general, he said, had ever 
committed greater faults. It must be added, that to the re- 
verses of this campaign he always ascribed his subsequent sue- 20 
cesses. It was in the midst of difficulty and disgrace that he 
caught the first clear glimpse of the principles of the military 
art. 

The memorable year 1745 followed. The war raged by sea 
and land, in Italy, in Germany, and in Flanders ; and even 25 
England, after many years of profound internal quiet, saw, 
for the last time, hostile armies set in battle array against each 
other. This year is memorable in the life of Frederic, as the 
date at which his novitiate in the art of war may be said to 
have terminated. There have been great captains whose pre- 30 
cocious and self-taught military skill resembled intuition. 
CondS, Clive, and Napoleon are examples. Bat Frederic was 

32. Louis, Prince de Conde (16-21-1686). A great French general. 
During the first part of his military career he foughr for Spam, but finally 
entered the French service. He was not as successful as when fighting for 
Spain. " He was born a general, 11 says Voltaire; kk the art of war seemed 
in him a natural instinct. 11 

32. Robert Clive, Baron of Plassey (1725-1774). A distinguished 
figure in Anglo-Indian politics. He seemed to have a natural genius for 



40 FREDERIC THE GREAT. 

not one of these brilliant portents. His profieiency in military 
science was simply the proficiency which a man of vigorous 
faculties makes in any science to which he applies his mind 
with earnestness and industry. It was at Hohenfriedberg 
5 that he first proved how much he had profited by his errors, 
and by their consequences. His victory on that day was 
chiefly due to his skillful dispositions, and convinced Europe 
that the prince who, a few years before, had stood aghast in 
the rout of Molwitz, had attained in the military art a mastery 

10 equalled by none of his contemporaries, or equalled by Saxe 
alone. The victory of Hohenfriedberg was speedily followed 
by that of Sorr. 

In the mean time, the arms of France had been victorious in 
the Low T Countries. Frederic had no longer reason to fear 

15 that Maria Theresa would be able to give law 7 to Europe, and 
he began to meditate a fourth breach of his engagements. 
The Court of Versailles w T as alarmed and mortified. A letter 
of earnest expostulation, in the handwriting of Lewis, was sent 
to Berlin ; but in vain. In the autumn of 1745, Frederic 

20 made peace with England, and, before the close of the year, 
with Austria also. The pretensions of Charles of Bavaria 
could present no obstacle to an accommodation. That un- 
happy prince was no more ; and Francis of Loraine, the hus- 
band of Maria Theresa, was raised, with the general assent of 

25 the Germanic body, to the Imperial throne. 

Prussia w r as again at peace ; but the European war lasted 

arms. At thirty years of age Colonel Clive won the famous victory of 
Plassey in India, with 3200 men against an army of 50,000 foot, 18,000 horse, 50 
pieces of cannon, and a number of elephants. This victory decided the East 
India Company's success in India, but it left a stain on the honor of Clive. 
He had engaged an eminent merchant to help him in his dispositions for the 
campaign, with the promise of a large reward in the event of success. After 
the battle Clive said that this agreement had been fictitious, and refused to 
pay. By this victory he received from Meer Jaffier, an Indian prince, a gift 
of over $1,000,000, and besides this later on he received an annuiry of over 
Si 25.000. When he returned to England for the last time a party in the 
House of Commons attacked him by moving " that, in the acquisition of his 
wealth, Lord Clive had abused the powers with which he was intrusted." 
The House rejected this motion, and resolved that "he had rendered great 
and meritorious services to his country." But this slur on his honor was 
more than Clive could bear, and in 1774 he committed suicide. Lord Chat- 
ham happily characterized him as "a heaven-born general, who, without 
experience, surpassed all the officers of his time." 
18. I^ewis, i.e., Louis XIV. 



FREDERIC THE GREAT. 41 

till, in the year 1748, it was terminated by the treaty of Aix- 
la-Chapelle. Of all the powers that had taken part in it, the 
only gainer was Frederic. Not only had he added to his pat^ 
rimony the fine province of Silesia : he had, by his unprinci- 
pled dexterity, succeeded so well in alternately depressing the 5 
scale of Austria and that of France, that he was generally re- 
garded as holding the balance of Europe, a high dignity for 
one who ranked lowest among kings, and whose great-grand- 
father had been no more than a Margrave. By the public, 
the King of Prussia was considered as a politician destitute 10 
alike of morality and decency, insatiably rapacious, and 
shamelessly false ; nor was the public much in the wrong. He 
was at the same time allowed to be a man of parts, a rising 
general, a shrewd negotiator and administrator. Those quali- 
ties wherein he surpassed all mankind, were as yet unknown 15 
to others or to himself ; for they were qualities which shine 
out only on a dark ground. His career had hitherto, with 
little interruption, been prosperous ; and it was only in adver- 
sity, in adversity which seemed without hope or resource, in 
adversity which would have overwhelmed even men celebrated 20 
for strength of mind, that his real greatness could be shown. 

He had, from the commencement of his reign, applied him- 
self to public business after a fashion unknown among kings. 
Lewis XIV., indeed, had been his own prime minister, and 
had exercised a general superintendence over all the depart- 25 
ments of the government ; but this was not sufficient for 
Frederic. He was not content with being his own prime min- 
ister : he would be his own sole minister. Under him there 
was no room, not merely for a Kicheiieu or a Mazarin, but for 

9. Margrave. One of the lower orders of German nobility. 
24. His own Prime Minister. It was Louis XIV. who said, " L'etat 
c'est moi " ('" I am the state).* 1 
29. Arniand Jean du Plessis, Cardinal, due de Richelieu (1585- 

1642). One of the greatest statesmen France has ever seen. He was first 
minister in the reign of Louis XIII., in spite of the personal antipathy which 
the king showed toward him. He alone practically governed France at this 
time. His political tenets were the unification of France and the destruc- 
tion of the Austrian royal house. During all Richelieu's long ascendancy 
continual plots and conspiracies were directed against him, and it was only 
by force of his extraordinary power of intellect that he was able to keep the 
reins of government iu his own hands. 
29. Jules Mazarin (1602-1661). Like Richelieu, Mazarin. was a prince of 



42 FREDERIC THE GREAT. 

a Colbert, a Louvois, or a Torcy. A love of labor for its own 
sake, a restless and insatiable longing to dictate, to inter- 
meddle, to make his power felt, a profound scorn and distrust 
of his fellow-creatures, made him unwilling to ask counsel, to 
5 confide important secrets, to delegate ample powers. The 
highest functionaries under his government were mere clerks, 
and were not so much trusted by him as valuable clerks are 
often trusted by the heads of departments. He was his own 
treasurer, his own commander-in-chief, his own intendant of 

i o public works, his own minister for trade and justice, for home 
affairs and foreign affairs, his own master of the horse, 
steward, and chamberlain. Matters of which no chief of an 
office in any other government would ever hear, were, in this 
singular monarchy, decided by the King in person. If a^ 

1 5 traveler wished for a good place to see a review, he had to 
write to Frederic, and received next day, from a royal messen- 
ger, Frederic's answer signed by Frederic's own hand. This 
was an extravagant, a morbid activity. The public business 
would assuredly have been better done if each department had 

20 been put under a man of talents and integrity, and if the King 
had contented himself with a general control. In this manner 
the advantages which belong to unity of design, and the ad- 



the church and a great statesman. By his services, first in the Papal army 
and afterwards as a diplomat, he had attracted the attention of Richelieu, 
who at his death recommended Mazarin as his successor. After the death 
of Louis XIII. Mazarin retained his power owing to the influence he had ob- 
tained over the French queen, Anne of Austria. Voltaire says " he had that 
power over the queen which a sagacious man ought to possess over a 
woman who is weak enough to be dominated and strong enough to persist 
in her choice of a favorite." Mazarin obtained for himself by his bad 
government the hatred of the nobility, the parliament, and the people. He 
always triumphed over his enemies in the end, however, and died the master 
of France. Some historians hold that he was secretly married to Anne of 
Austria, and that the famous ll Man in the Iron Mask " was their son. 

1. Jean-Baptiste Colbert, Marquis de Seignelay (1619-1683). A 
great French statesman who under Lewis XIV. was charged with the whole 
internal administration of France. He subjected agriculture to the most 
minute restrictions, and raised France industrially to a high pitch of pros- 
perity. He was a most accomplished financier. 

1. Francois-Michel le Tellier, Marquis de Louvois (1639-1691). 
Louvois exercised the same regulating influence over the army that Colbert 
exercised over the finances of France. 

1. Jean-Baptiste de Torcy (1665-1746). A French statesman of great 
influence during the regency before Lewis XV. attained his majority. " He 
was a good and strong man, with all the qualities necessary to make himself 
respected and feared. 1 '— Saint Simon, 



FREDERIC THE GREAT. 43 

vantages which belong to the division of labor, would have 
been to a great extent combined. But such a system would 
not have suited the peculiar temper of Frederic. He could 
tolerate no will, no reason, in the state, save his own. He 
wished for no abler assistance than that of penmen who had 5 
just understanding enough to translate and transcribe, to 
make out his scrawls, and to put his concise Yes and No into 
an official form. Of the higher intellectual faculties, there is 
as much in a copying machine, or a lithographic press, as he 
required from a secretary of the cabinet. 10 

His own exertions were such as were hardly to be expected 
from a human body or a. human mind. At Potsdam, his ordi- 
nary residence, he rose at three in summer and four in winter. 
A page soon appeared, with a large basket full of all the letters 
which had arrived for the King by the last courier, dispatches 1 5 
from ambassadors, reports from officers of revenue, plans of 
buildings, proposals for draining marshes, complaints from 
persons who thought themselves aggrieved, applications from * 
persons who wanted titles, military commissions, and civil sit- 
uations. He examined the seals with a keen eye ; for he was 20 
never for a moment free from the suspicion that some fraud 
might be practiced on him. Then lie read the letters, divided 
them into several packets, and signified his pleasure, generally 
by a mark, often by two or three words, now and then by some 
cutting epigram. By eight he had generally finished this part 25 
of his task. The adjutant-general was then in attendance, and 
received instructions for the day as to all the military arrange- 
ments of the kingdom. Then the King went to review his 
guards, not as kings ordinarily review their guards, but with 
the minute attention and severity of an old drill-sergeant. In 30 
the mean time the four cabinet secretaries had been employed 
in answering the letters on which the King had that morning 
signified his will. These unhappy men were forced to work all 
the year round like negro slaves in the time of the sugar-crop. 
They never had a holiday. They never knew what it was to 35 
dine. It was necessary that, before they stirred, they should 
finish the whole of their work. The King, always on his guard 



4-4 FBEDEBIG THE GREAT. 

against treachery, took from the heap a handful of letters at 
random, and looked into them to see whether his instructions 
had been exactly followed. This was no bad security against 
foul play on the part of the secretaries ; for if one of them 
5 were detected in a trick, he might think himself fortunate if 
lie escaped with five years of imprisonment in a dungeon. 
Frederic then signed the replies, and all were sent off the same 
evening. 

The general principles on which this strange government 

io was conducted, deserve attention. The policy of Frederic 
was essentially the same as his father's ; but Frederic, while 
he carried that policy to lengths to which his father never 
thought of carrying it, cleared it at the same time from the 
absurdities with which his father had encumbered it. The 

15 King's first object was to have a great, efficient, and well- 
trained army. He had a kingdom which in extent and popu- 
lation was hardly in the second rank of European powers ; 

• and yet he aspired to a place not inferior to that of the 
sovereigns of England, France, and Austria. For that end it 

20 was necessary that Prussia should be all sting. Lewis XV., 
with five times as many subjects as Frederic, and more than 
five times as large a revenue, had not a more formidable 
army. The proportion which the soldiers in Prussia bore to 
the people seems hardly credible. Of the males in the vigor 

25 of life, a seventh part were probably under arms ; and this 
great force had, by drilling, by reviewing, and by the unspar- 
ing use of cane and scourge, been taught to perform all 
evolutions with a rapidity and a precision which would have 
astonished Villars or Eugene. The elevated feelings which 

30 are necessary to the best kind of army were then wanting to 
the Prussian service. In those ranks were not found the relig- 
ious and political enthusiasm which inspired the pikemen of 
Cromwell, the patriotic ardor, the thirst of glory, the devo- 

29. Claude Louis, Due de Villars (165:3-1734). A celebrated French 
general. At the great battle of Malplaquet, in 1709, he was defeated by the 
combined forces of Marlborough aud Prince Eugene. This was practically 
his only defeat. 

29. Eugene. See note, page 17. 

3^, Pikemen of Cromwell. The English foot-soldiers of Cromwell's 



FREDERIC THE GREAT. 45 

tiott to a great leader, which inflamed the Old Guard of 
Napoleon. But in all the mechanical parts of the military 
calling, the Prussians were as superior to the English and 
French troops of that day, as the English and French troops 
to a rustic militia. 5 

Though the pay of the Prussian soldier was small, though 
every rixdollar of extraordinary charge was scrutinized by 
Frederic with a vigilance and suspicion such as Mr. Joseph 
Hume never brought to the examination of an army estimate, 
the expense of such an establishment was, for the means of ic 
the country, enormous. In order that it might not be utterly 
ruinous, it was necessary that every other expense should be 
cut down to the lowest possible point. Accordingly Frederic, 
though his dominions bordered on the sea, had no navy. He 
neither had nor wished to have colonies. Eis judges, his 15 
fiscal officers, were meanly paid. His ministers at foreign 
courts walked on foot, or drove shabby old carriages till the 
axle-trees gave way. Even to his highest diplomatic agents, 
who resided at London and Paris, he allowed less than a 
thousand pounds sterling a year. The royal household was 20 
managed with a frugality unusual in the establishments of 
opulent subjects, unexampled in any other palace. The King 
loved good eating and drinking, and during great part of his 
life took pleasure in seeing his table surrounded by guests ; 
yet the whole charge of his kitchen was brought within the 25 
sum of two thousand pounds sterling a-year. He examined 
every extraordinary item with a care winch might be thought 
to suit the mistress of a boarding-house better than a great 
prince. When more than four rixdollars were asked of him 
for a hundred oysters, he stormed as if he had heard that one 30 



time were armed with long pikes or spears, which were largely used to re- 
pulse cavalry attacks; the soldiers kneeling, and opposing a bristling array 
of spears to the charging horsemen. 

1. Old Guard of Napoleon. The Old Guard was composed of veteran 
soldiers who were considered the flower of the French army. 

7. Rixdollar. This word is derived from the German Reichsthaler, a 
dollar of the empire. It is valued at a<out 37 cents. 

9. Josepli Hume (1777-1855). A British statesman pre-eminent for many 
years in the House of Commons as a financial reformer and as a sturdy 
opponent of monopolies and high taxes. 



46 FREDERIC THE GREAT. 

of bis generals had sold a fortress to the Empress Queen. 
Not a bottle of champagne was uncorked without his express 
order. The game of the royal parks and forests, a serious 
head of expenditure in most kingdoms, was to him a source 
5 of profit. The whole was farmed out ; and, though the 
farmers were almost ruined by their contract, the King would 
grant them no remission. His wardrobe consisted of one fine 
gala dress, which lasted him all his life ; of two or three old 
coats fit for Monmouth Street, of yellow w T aistcoats soiled with 

10 snuff, and of huge boots embrowned by time. One taste* 
alone sometimes allured him beyond the limits of parsimony, 
nay, even beyond the limits of prudence, the taste for build- 
ing. In all other things his economy was such as we might 
call by a harsher name, if we did not reflect that his funds 

15 were drawn from a heavily taxed people, and that it was im- 
possible for him, without excessive tyranny, to keep up at 
once a formidable army and a splendid court. 

Considered as an administrator, Frederic had undoubtedly 
many titles to praise. Order was strictly maintained through- 

20 out his dominions. Property was secure. A great liberty of 
speaking and of writing was allowed. Confident in the 
irresistible strength derived from a great army, the King 
looked down on malcontents and libelers with a wise dis- 
dain ; and gave little encouragement to spies and informers. 

25 When he was told of the disaffection of one of his subjects, he 
merely asked, "How many thousand men can he bring into 
the field?" He once saw a crowd staring at something on a 
wall. He rode up, and found that the object of curiosity was 
a scurrilous placard against himself. The placard had been 

30 posted up so high that it was not easy to read it. Frederic 
ordered his attendants to take it down and put it lower. 
" My people and I," he said, "have come to an agreement 
which satisfies us both. They are to say what they please, 
and I am to do what I please." No person would have dared 

9. Monmouth Street. A street in London, called by Dickens, from its 
shops for old clothes, " the burial-place of the fashions." " With awestruck 
heart I walk through that Monmouth Street, with its empty suits, as through 
a Sanhedrim of stainless ghosts. 1 '— Carhjle. 



FREDERIC THE GREAT. 47 

to publish in London satires on George II. approaching to the 
atrocity of those satires on Frederic, which the booksellers at 
Berlin sold with impunity. One bookseller sent to the palace 
a copy of the most stinging lampoon that perhaps was ever 
written in the world, the Memoirs of Voltaire, published by 5 
Beaumarchais, and asked for his Majesty's orders. "Do not 
advertise it in an offensive manner/' said the King ; " but sell 
it by all means. I hope it will pay you well." Even among 
statesmen accustomed to the license of a free press, such 
, steadfastness of mind as this is not very common. 10 

It is due also to the memory of Frederic to say, that he 
earnestly labored to secure to his people the great blessing of 
cheap and speedy justice. He was one of the first rulers who 
abolished the* cruel and absurd practice of torture. No sen- 
tence of death, pronounced by the ordinary tribunals, was 15 
executed without his sanction ; and his sanction, except in 
cases" of murder, was rarely given. Towards his troops he 
acted in a very different manner. Military offenses were 
punished with such barbarous scourging, that to be shot was 
considered by the Prussian soldier as a secondary punishment. 20 
Indeed, the principle which pervaded Frederic's whole policy 
was this, that the more severely the army is governed, the 
safer it is to treat the rest of the community with lenity. 

Religious persecution was unknown under his government, 
unless some foolish and unjust restrictions which lay upon the 25 
Jews may be regarded as forming an exception. His policy 
with respect to the Catholics of Silesia presented an honorable 
contrast to the policy which, under very similar circumstances, 
England long followed with respect to the Catholics of Ireland. 
Every form of religion and irreligion found an asylum in his 30 
states. The scoffer whom the parliaments of France had 
sentenced to a cruel death, was consoled by a commission in 
the Prussian service. The Jesuit who could show his face 

33. The Jesuits. A religious order founded in 1534 by Ignatius Loj^ola. 
The members of the order took vows of implicit obedience to their superior. 
They were largely missionaries. Among the Indians in Canada they gained 
great iufluence. In Europe they served political purposes to such an extent 
that they became universally feared and contemued. 



48 FBEDERIC THE GREAT. 

nowhere else, who in Britain was still subject to penal laws, 
who was proscribed by France, Spain, Portugal, and Naples, 
who had been given up even by the Vatican, found safety and 
the means of subsistence in the Prussian dominions. 
5 Most of the vices of Frederic's administration resolve them- 
selves into one vice, the spirit of meddling. The indefatiga- 
ble activity of his intellect, his dictatorial temper, his mili- 
tary habits, all inclined him to this great fault. He drilled 
his people as he drilled his grenadiers. Capital and industry 

10 were diverted from their natural direction by a crowd of pre- 
posterous regulations. There was a monopoly of coffee, a 
monopoly of tobacco, a monopoly of refined sugar. The public 
money, of which the King was generally so sparing, was 
lavishly spent in plowing bogs, in planting mulberry-trees 

1 S amidst the sand, in bringing sheep from Spain to improve the 
Saxon wool, in bestowing prizes for fine yarn, in building 
manufactories of porcelain, manufactories of carpets, manu- 
factories of hardware, manufactories of lace. Neither the 
experience of other rulers, nor his own, could ever teach him 

20 that something more than an edict and a grant of public 
money was required to create a Lyons, a Brussels, or a Birm- 
ingham. 

For his commercial policy, however, there was some excuse. 
He had on his side illustrious examples and popular prejudice. 

2 5 Grievously as he erred, he erred in company with his age. In 
other departments his meddling was altogether without 
apology. He interfered with the course of justice as well as 
with the course of trade ; and set up his own crude notions of 
equity against the law as expounded by the unanimous voice 

3° of the gravest magistrates. It never occurred to him that 
men whose lives were passed in adjudicating on questions of 
civil right, were more likely to form correct opinions on such 
questions than a prince whose attention was divided among a 

3. The Vatican. A noble assemblage of buildings at the foot of one of 

the seven hills upon which Rome is built. It includes the Pope's palace, a 
museum, and a library. The word is also used, as here, to mean the papal 
party. 
21. Lyons, Brussels, Birmingham. Flourishing commercial cities. 



FREDEEIC THE GREAT. 49 

thousand objects, and who had never read a law-book through. 
The resistance opposed to him by the tribunals inflamed him 
to fury. He reviled his Chancellor. He kicked the shins of 
his Judges. He did not, it is true, intend to act unjustly. He 
firmly believed that he was doing right, and defending the 5 
cause of the poor against the wealthy. Yet this well-meant 
meddling probably did far more harm than all the explosions 
of his evil passions during the whole of his long reign. ATe 
could make shift to live under a debauchee or a tyrant ; but 
to be ruled by a busybody is more than human nature can 
bear. IO 

The same passion for directing and regulating appeared in 
every part of the King's policy. Every lad of a certain station 
in life was forced to go to certain schools within the Prussian 
dominions. If a young Prussian repaired, though but for a 
few weeks, to Leyden or Gottingen for the purpose of study, 15 
the offense was punished with civil disabilities, and sometimes 
with the confiscation of property. Nobody was to travel 
without the royal permission. If the permission were granted, 
the pocket-money of the tourist was fixed by royal ordinance. 
A merchant might take with him two hundred and fifty rix- 20 
dollars in gold, a noble was allowed to take four hundred ; 
for it may be observed, in passing, that Frederic studiously 
kept up the old distinction between the nobles and the com- 
munity. In speculation he was a French philosopher, but in 
action a German prince. He talked and wrote about the 25 
privileges of blood in the style of Sieyes ; but in practice no 
chapter in the empire looked with a keener eye to genealogies 
and quarterings. 

Such was Frederic the Ruler. But there was another Fred- 
eric, the Frederic of Rheinsberg, the fiddler and flute-player, 30 
the poetaster and metaphysician. Amidst the cares of state 
the King had retained his passion for music, for reading, for 

26. Emmanuel Joseph Sieyes (1748-1836). A famous French politician 
and revolutionist. He took prominent parts in all the revolutionary- move- 
ments in France from 1789 until 1799. He always steered a moderate course, 
and was one of the few men who were prominent during the French Revo- 
lution without losing their heads and fortunes. He was called " the consti- 
tution-maker. " 



50 FREDERIC THE GREAT. 

writing, for literary society. To these amusements he devoted 
all the time that he could snatch from the business of war 
and government ; and perhaps more light is thrown on his 
character by what passed during his hours of relaxation, than 
5 by his battles or his laws. 

It was the just boast of Schiller that, in his country, no 
Augustus, no Lorenzo, had watched over the infancy of 
poetry. The rich and energetic language of Luther, driven 
by the Latin from the schools of pedants, and by the French 

10 from the palaces of kings, had taken refuge among the people. 
Of the powers of that language Frederic had no notion. He 
generally spoke of it, and of those who used it, with the con- 
tempt of ignorance. His library consisted of French books ; 
at his table nothing was heard but French conversation. The 

15 associates of his hours of relaxation were, for the most part, 
foreigners. Britain furnished to the royal circle two distin- 
guished men, born in the highest rank, and driven by civil 
dissensions from the land to which, under happier circum- 
stances, their talents and virtues might have been a source 

20 of strength and glory. George Keith, Earl Marischal of Scot- 
land, had taken arms for the House of Stuart in 1715 ; and 
his younger brother James, then only seventeen years old, 
had fought gallantly by his side. When all was lost they re- 
tired together to the Continent, roved from country to coun- 

25 try, served under various standards, and so bore themselves 
as to win the respect and good- will of many who had no love 

6. Johann Christoph Friedricli von Schiller (1759-1805). One of 
Germany's great national poets. His greatest dramatic works are: The 
Robbers, Wallenstein, The Maid of Orleans, Mary Stuart, and William 
Tell. 

7. Augustus Caesar (63 b.c-14 a.d.). During the reign of Augustus, 
Rome reached the highest point of civilization. He protected and encour- 
aged literature and the arts. 

7. Lorenzo cle' Medici (1448-1492). Surnamed the Magnificent. Flor- 
ence enjoyed great prosperity under Lorenzo. He was highly distinguished 
as a patron of the arts and literature, and founded at Florence an academy 
for -the study of the antique. He collected a magnificent library and ex- 
pended large sums in beautifying his city. 

8. Martin Luther (1483-1.546). The great leader of the Reformation in 
Germany. In 1534 Luther translated the New and Old Testaments into Ger- 
man. These translations, by the force and beauty of their language, exerted 
a great influence on the growth of the German tongue. From Luther's time 
dates the modern German language. It was he who shaped it into its pres- 
ent form. 



FREDERIC THE GREAT. 51 

for the Jacobite cause. Their long wanderings terminated at 
Potsdam ; nor had Frederic any associates who deserved or 
obtained so large a share of his esteem. They were not only 
accomplished men, but nobles and warriors, capable of serv- 
ing him in war and diplomacy, as well as amusing him at 5 
supper. Alone of all his companions they appear never to 
have had reason to complain of his demeanor towards them. 
Some of those who knew the palace best, pronounced that 
Lord Marischal was the only human being whom Freddie 
ever really loved. IO 

Italy sent to the parties at Potsdam the ingenious and 
amiable Algarotti, and Bastiani, the most crafty, cautious, 
and servile of Abbes. But the greater part of the society 
which Frederic had assembled round him was drawn from 
France. Maupertuis had acquired some celebrity by the 15 
journey which he had made to Lapland, for the purpose of 
ascertaining, by actual measurement, the shape of our planet. 
He was placed in the Chair of the Academy of Berlin, a 
humble imitation of the renowned Academy of Paris. Bacu- 
lard D'Arnaud, a young poet, who was thought to have 2 o 
given promise of great things, had been induced to quit his 
country, and to reside at the Prussian Court. The Marquess 
D'Argens was among the King's favorite companions, on 
account, as it should seem, of the strong opposition between 
their characters. The parts of D'Argens were good, and his 25 
manners those of a finished French gentleman ; but his 
whole soul was dissolved in sloth, timidity, and self-indul- 
gence. His was one of that abject class of minds which are 
superstitious without being religious. Hating Christianity 
with a rancor which made him incapable of rational inquiry, 30 
unable to see in the harmony and beauty of the universe the 
traces of divine power and wisdom, he was the slave of 
dreams and omens, would not sit down to table with thirteen 
in company, turned pale if the salt fell towards him, begged 
his guests not to cross their knives and forks on their plates, 35 

1. Jacobite cause. The cause of James II. (Lat. Jacobus) and his de- 
scendants. The cause of the House of Stuart. 



FREDERIC TTTK GREAT. 

and would not for Hie world commence a journey on Friday. 
His health was a subject of constant anxiety to him. When- 
ever his head ached, or his pulse beat quick, his dastardly fears 
and effeminate precautions were the jest of all Berlin. All 
5 this suited the King's purpose admirably. He wanted some- 
body by whom he might be amused, and whom he might de- 
spise. When he wished to pass half an hour in easy polished 
conversation, D'Argens was an excellent companion ; when he 
wanted to vent his spleen and contempt, D'Argens was an 

10 excellent butt. 

With these associates, and others of the same class, Fred- 
eric loved to spend the time which he could steal from public 
cares. He wished his supper-parties to be gay and easy. He 
invited his guests to lay aside all restraint, and to forget that 

J 5 he was at the head of a hundred and sixty thousand soldiers, 
and was absolute master of the life and liberty of all who sat 
at meat with him. There was, therefore, at these parties the 
outward show of ease. The wit and learning of the company 
were ostentatiously displayed. The discussions on history and 

20 literature were often highly interesting. But the absurdity of 
all the religions known among men was the chief topic of con- 
versation ; and the audacity with which doctrines and names 
venerated throughout Christendom were treated on these occa- 
sions, startled even persons accustomed to the society of French 

25 and English freethinkers. Eeal liberty, however, or real 
affection, was in this brilliant society not to be found. Abso- 
lute kings seldom have friends : and Frederic's faults were 
such as, even where perfect equality exists, make friendship 
exceedingly precarious. He had indeed many qualities which, 

30 on a first acquaintance, were captivating. His conversation 
was lively^; his manners, to those whom he desired to please, 
were even caressing. No man could flatter with more delicacy. 
No man succeeded more completely in inspiring those who 
approached him with vague hopes of some great advantage 

35 from his kindness. But under this fair exterior he was a 
tyrant, suspicious, disdainful, and malevolent. He had one 
taste which may be pardoned in a boy, but which, when 



FREDERIC THE GREAT. 53 

habitually and deliberately indulged by a man of mature age 
and strong understanding, is almost invariably the sign of a 
bad heart— a taste for severe practical jokes. If a courtier ^-^T - 

was fond of dress, oil was flung over his richest suit. If he 
was fond of money, some prank was invented to make him 5 
disburse more than he could spare. If he was hypochondriacal, 
he was made to believe that he had the dropsy. If he had 
particularly set his heart on visiting a place, a letter was 
forged to frighten him from going thither. These things, it 
may be said, are trifles. They are so ; but they are indications, 10 
not to be mistaken, of a nature to which the sight of human 
suffering and human degradation is an agreeable excitement. 

Frederic had a keen eye for the foibles of others, and loved 
to communicate his discoveries. He had some talent for sar- 
casm, and considerable skill in detecting the sore places where 15 
sarcasm would be most acutely felt. His vanity, as well as 
his malignity, found gratification in the vexation and confu- 
sion of those who smarted under his caustic jests. Yet in 
truth his success on these occasions belonged quite as much to 
the King as to the wit. We read that Commodus descended, 20 
sword in hand, into the arena against a wretched gladiator, 
armed only with a foil of lead, and, after shedding the blood 
of the helpless victim, struck medals to commemorate the 
inglorious victory. The triumphs of Frederic in the war of 
repartee were of much the same kind. How to deal with him 25 
was the most puzzling of questions. To appear constrained in 
his presence was to disobey his commands, and to spoil his 
amusement. Yet if his associates were enticed by his gracious- 
ness to indulge in the familiarity of a cordial intimacy, he was 
certain to make them repent of their presumption by some 30 
cruel humiliation. To resent his affronts was perilous ; yet 
not to resent them was to deserve and to invite them. In his 
view, those who mutinied were insolent and ungrateful ; those 
who submitted were curs made to receive bones and kickings 
with the same fawning patience. It is, indeed, difficult to 35 

20. Corniiiodus (161-192 a.d.). A Roman emperor notorious for his bestial 
vices. 



54 FREDERIC THE GREAT. 

conceive hovt anything short of the rage of hunger should have 
Induced men to bear the misery of being the associates of fche 
Great King. It was no lucrative post. His Majesty was as 
severe and economical in his friendships as in the other 
5 charges of his establishment, and as unlikely to give a rix- 
dollar too much for his guests as for his dinners. The sum 
which he allowed to a poet or a philosopher was the very 
smallest sum for which such poet or philosopher could be in- 
duced to sell himself into slavery ; and the bondsman might 

10 think himself fortunate if what had been so grudgingly given 
was not, after years of suffering, rudely and arbitrarily with- 
drawn. 

Potsdam was, in truth, what it was called by one of its 
most illustrious inmates, the Palace of Alcina. At the first 

[5 glance it seemed to be a delightful spot, where every intel- 
lectual and physical enjoyment awaited the happy adventurer. 
Every new-comer was received with eager hospitality, intoxi- 
cated with flattery, encouraged to expect prosperity and great- 
ness. It was in vain that a long succession of favorites who 

20 had entered that abode with delight and hope, and who, after 
a short term of delusive happiness, had been doomed to expiate 
their folly by years of wretchedness and degradation, raised 
their voices to warn the aspirant who approached the charmed 
threshold. Some had wisdom enough to discover the truth 

25 early, and spirit enough to fly without looking back ; others 
lingered on to a cheerless and unhonored old age. We have 
no hesitation in saying that the poorest author of that time in 
London, sleeping on a bulk, dining in a cellar, with a cravat 
of paper, and a skewer for a shirt-pin, was a happier man 

30 than any of the literary inmates of Frederic's court. 

But of all who entered the enchanted garden in the inebria- 
tion of delight, and quitted it in agonies of rage and shame, 
the most remarkable was Voltaire. Many circumstances had 
made him desirous of finding a home at a distance from his 

14. Palace of Alcina. In Ariosto's Orlando Furioso. Alcina is a kind 
of GMrce whose palace is a scene of enchantment. Alcina enjoys her lovers 
for a season and then converts them into trees, stones, or wild beasts, as her 
fancy dictates. 



FREDERIC THE GREAT. 55 

country. His fame had raised him up enemies. His sensi- 
bility gave them a formidable advantage over him. They 
were, indeed, contemptible assailants. Of all that they wrote 
against him, nothing has survived except what he has himself 
preserved. But the constitution of his mind resembled the 5 
constitution of those bodies in which the slightest scratch of a 
bramble, or the bite of a gnat, never fails to fester. Though 
his reputation was rather raised than lowered by the abuse of 
such writers as Freron and Desfontaines, though the venge- 
ance which he took on Freron and Desfontaines was such that 10 
scourging, branding, pillorying would have been a trifle to it, 
there is reason to believe that they gave him far more pain 
than he ever gave them. Though he enjoyed during his own 
lifetime the reputation of a classic, though he was extolled by 
his contemporaries above all poets, philosophers, and historians, 15 
though his works were read with as much delight and admira- 
tion at Moscow and Westminster, at Florence and Stockholm, 
as at Paris itself, he was yet tormented by that restless jeal- 
ousy which should seem to belong only to minds burning with 
the desire of fame, and yet conscious of impotence. To men 20 
of letters who could by no possibility be his rivals, he was, if 
they behaved well to him, not merely just, not merely courte- 
ous, but often a hearty friend and a munificent benefactor. 
But to every writer who rose to a celebrity approaching his 
own, he became either a disguised or an avowed enemy. He 25 
slily depreciated Montesquieu and Buffon. He publicly, and 

Nor had he 

9. Freron and Desfontaines. The editors of a critical review pub- 
lished in the first part of the eighteenth century. 
26. Charles de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu (1689-1755). A 

brilliant, original, and popular French author. He made deep researches 
into the labyrinths of history and political science. In respect to one of his 
works Voltaire said: '"The human race lost its titles; Montesquieu found 
and restored them.'" 

26. Georges Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon (1707-1788). An illus- 
trious French naturalist and philosopher. He made many important dis- 
coveries in the realms of physical science and natural history. He tested by 
experiments the probability of the statement that Archimedes set fire to the 
Roman fleet by burning-mirrors, and succeeded in igniting wood at the dis- 
tance of two hundred feet. 

26. Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778). A celebrated Swiss philoso- 
pher and writer. His early career presents a series of bizarre adventures, 
absurd vagaries, and surprising vicissitudes, of which he gave an extremely 



56 FBEDERIC THE GREAT. 

the art of hiding his feelings under the semblance of good 
humor or of contempt. With all his great talents, and all his 
long experience of the world, he had no more self-command 

than a petted child or a hysterical woman. Whenever he was 
5 mortified, he exhausted the whole rhetoric of anger and sorrow 
to express his mortification. His torrents of bitter words, his 
stamping and cursing, his grimaces and his tears of rage, were 
a rich feast to those abject natures whose delight is in the 
agonies of powerful spirits and in the abasement of immortal 

io names. These creatures had now found out a way of galling 
him to the very quick. In one walk, at least, it had been ad- 
mitted by envy itself that he was without a living competitor. 
Since Racine had been laid among the great men whose dust 
made the holy precinct of Port Royal holier, no tragic poet had 

15 appeared who could contest the palm with the author of Zaire, 
of Alzire, and of Merope. At length a rival was announced. 
Old Crebillon, who, many years before, had obtained some 
theatrical success, and who had long been forgotten, came 
forth from his garret in one of the meanest lanes near the 

20 Rue St. Antoine, and was welcomed by the acclamations of 
envious men of letters, and of a capricious populace. A 
thing called Catiline, which he had written in his retirement, 
was acted with boundless applause. Of this execrable piece 
it is sufficient to say, that the plot turns on a love affair, 

25 carried on in all the forms of Scudery, between Catiline, whose 
confidant is the Praetor Lentulus, and Tullia, the daughter of 
Cicero. The theater resounded with acclamations. The king 

candid and unreserved account in bis Confessions. He produced in 1753 the 
Discourse on the Origin of Inequality among 31en, in which he maintains 
that all men are born with equal rights. " He was the father of modern 
democracy, 1 ' says Professor Lowell, "and. without him our Declaration of 
Independence would have wanted some of those sentences in which the 
immemorial longings of the poor, and the dreams of solitar} T enthusiasts 
were at last affirmed in the manifesto of a nation, so that all the world 
might hear. ,% 

15. The author of Zaire, Alzire, and of Merope— Voltaire. 

17. Crebillon. Crebillon had enjoyed a great reputation as a tragic 
writer before Voltaire's day. 

25. The forms of Scudery. Mile, de Scudery (1607-1701) was the lead- 
ing member of that portion of French society which Moliere satirizes in his 
Precieuses Ridicules. She led a movement similar to the English Euphuism 
of Elizabethan times, so well portrayed in Charles Kingsley's delightful 
Westward Ho. 



FREDERIC THE GREAT. 57 

pensioned the successful poet ; and the coffeehouses pro- 
nounced that Voltaire was a clever man, but that the real 
tragic inspiration, the celestial lire which had glowed in 
Oorneille and Racine, was to be found in Crebillon alone. 

The blow went to Voltaire's heart. Had his wisdom and 5 
fortitude been in proportion to the fertility of his intellect, 
and to the brilliancy of his wit, he would have seen that it 
was out of the power of all the puffers and detractors in 
Europe to put Catiline above Zaire ; but he had none of the 
magnanimous patience with which Milton and Bentley left 10 
their claims to the unerring judgment of time. He eagerly 
engaged in an undignified competition with Crebillon, and 
produced a series of plays on the same subjects which his rival 
had treated. These pieces were coolly received. Angry with 
the court, angry with the capital, Voltaire began to find 15 
pleasure in the prospect of exile. His attachment for Madame 
du Chatelet long prevented him from executing his purpose. 
Her death set him at liberty, and he determined to take refuge 
at Berlin. 

To Berlin he w T as invited by a series of letters, couched in 20 
terms of the most enthusiastic friendship and admiration. 
For once the rigid parsimony of Frederic seemed to have re- 
laxed. Orders, honorable offices, a liberal pension, a well- 
served table, stately apartments under a royal roof, were 
offered in return for the pleasure and honor which were ex- 25 
pected from the society of the first wit of the age. A thousand 
louis were remitted for the charges of the journey. No am- 



4. Pierre Corneille (1606-1684). A great French dramatic author, the 
founder of the French drama, and the writer who has perhaps contributed 
most to the development of the French national genius. Among his great- 
est works are Le Cid, Cinna, and Polyeucte." 

10. John Milton (1608-1674). An immortal poet, and if we except Shake- 
speare, the most illustrious name in English literature. His greatest works 
are the poems Paradise Lost, Samson Agonistes, Paradise Regained, Lyci- 
das, L' Allegro, II Penseroso, Comus, and the Areopagitica, a plea in prose 
for unlicensed printing. 

10. Richard Bentley (1662-1742). A celebrated critic, regarded as the 
greatest classical scholar that England ever produced. His works are : 
Latin Epistle to John Nidi, two Dissertations on the Epistle of Phalaris. 
The Epistle of Phalaris was a forged letter from Christ to Phalaris, tyrant 
of Agrigentum, published by John Boyle. Bentley showed that this was a 
forgery. This gave rise to the first great English literary controversy. 



58 FREDERIC THE GREAT. 

bassador setting out from Berlin for a court of the first rank 
had ever been more amply supplied. But Voltaire was not 
satisfied. At a later period, when he possessed an ample for- 
tune, he was one of the most liberal of men ; but till his 
5 means had become equal to his wishes, his greediness for lucre 
was unrestrained either by justice or by shame. He had the 
effrontery to ask for a thousand louis more, in order to enable 
him to bring his niece, Madame Denis, the ugliest of coquettes, 
in his company. The indelicate rapacity of the poet produced 

10 its natural effect on the severe and frugal King. The answer 
was a dry refusal. "I did not," said his Majesty, " solicit 
the honor of the lady's society." On this, Voltaire went off 
into a paroxysm of childish rage. "Was there ever such 
avarice ! He has hundreds of tubs full of dollars in his vaults, 

15 and haggles with me about a poor thousand louis." It seemed 
that the negotiation would be broken off ; but Frederic, with 
great dexterity, affected indifference, and seemed inclined to 
transfer his idolatry to Baculard D- Arnaud. His Majesty even 
wrote some bad verses, of which the sense was, that Voltaire 

20 was a setting sun, and that Arnaud was rising. Good-natured 
friends soon carried the lines to Voltaire. He was in his bed. 
He jumped out in his shirt, danced about the room with rage, 
and sent for his passport and his post-horses. It w T as not 
difficult to foresee the end of a connection which had such a 

25 beginning. 

It was in the year 1750 that Voltaire left the great capital, 
which he was not to see again till, after the lapse of near 
thirty years, he returned, bowed down by extreme old age, to 
die in the midst of a splendid and ghastly triumph. His re- 

30 ception in Prussia was such as might well have elated a less 
vain and excitable mind. He wrote to his friends at Paris, 
that the kindness and the attention with which he had been 
welcomed surpassed description, that the King was the most 
amiable of men, that Potsdam was the paradise of philoso- 

18. D' Arnaud. A voluminous writer of plays, novels, etc. He is chiefly 
famous for the reply he made to Frederick's question concerning Atheism : 
" I rejoice to believe in the existence of a Being greater and wiser than 
kings.'" 



FREDERIC THE GREAT. 59 

pliers. He was created chamberlain, and received, together 
with his gold key, the cross of an order, and a patent insuring 
to him a pension of eight hundred pounds sterling a year for 
life. A hundred and sixty pounds a year were promised to 
his niece if she survived him. The royal cooks and coachmen 5 
were put at his disposal. He was lodged in the same apart- 
ments in which Saxe had lived, when, at the height of power 
and glory, he visited Prussia. Frederic, indeed, stooped for a 
time even to use the language of adulation. He pressed to his 
lips the meager hand of the little grinning skeleton, whom he 10 
regarded as the dispenser of immortal renown. He would 
add, he said, to the titles which he owed to his ancestors and 
his, sword, another title, derived from his last and proudest 
acquisition. His style should run thus : — Frederic, King of 
Prussia, Margrave of Brandenburg, Sovereign Duke of Silesia, 15 
Possessor of Voltaire. But even amidst the delights of the 
honeymoon, Voltaire's sensitive vanity began to take alarm. 
A few days after his arrival, he could not help telling his 
niece that the amiable King had a trick of giving a sly scratch 
with one hand, while patting and stroking with the other. 20 
Soon came hints not the less alarming, because mysterious. 
,w The supper parties are delicious. The King is the life of the 
company. But — I have operas and comedies, reviews and 
concerts, my studies and books. But — but — Berlin is fine, the 
princesses charming, the maids of honor handsome. But " — 25 

This eccentric friendship was fast cooling. Never had there 
met two persons so exquisitely fitted to plague each other. 
Each of them had exactly the fault of which the other was 
most impatient ; and they were, in different ways, the most 
impatient of mankind. Frederic was frugal, almost niggardly. 30 
When he had secured his plaything, he began to think that he 
had bought it too dear. Voltaire, on the other hand, was 
greedy, even to the extent of impudence and knavery ; and 
conceived that the favorite of a monarch, w T ho had barrels full 
of gold and silver laid up in cellars, ought to make a fortune 35 
which a receiver-general might envy. They soon discovered 
each other's feelings. Both were angry ; and a war began, in 



60 FREDERIC THE GREAT. 

which Frederic stooped to the part of Harpagon, and Voltaire 
to that o\' Scapin. It is humiliating to relate, thai the great 
warrior and statesman gave orders that his guest's allowance 
of sugar and chocolate should be curtailed. It is, if possible, 

5 a still more humiliating fact, that Voltaire indemnified him- 
self by pocketing the wax candles in the royal antechamber. 
Disputes about money, however, were not the most serious 
disputes of these extraordinary associates. The sarcasms of 
the King soon galled the sensitive temper of the poet. 

10 D'Arnaud and D'Argens, Guichard and La Metrie, might, for 
the sake of a morsel of bread, be willing to bear the insolence 
of a master ; but Voltaire was of another order. He knew 
that lie was a potentate as well as Frederic, that his European 
reputation, and his incomparable power of covering whatever 

15 he hated, with ridicule, made him an object of dread even to 
the leaders of armies and the rulers of nations. In truth, of 
all the intellectual weapons which have ever been wielded by 
man, the most terrible was the mockery of Voltaire. Bigots 
and tyrants, who had never been moved by the wailing and 

20 cursing of millions, turned pale at his name. Principles un- 
assailable by reason, principles which had withstood the 
fiercest attacks of power, the most valuable truths, the most 
generous sentiments, the noblest and most graceful images, 
the purest reputations, the most august institutions, began to 

25 look mean and loathsome as soon as that withering smile was 
turned upon them. To every opponent, however strong in his 
cause and his talents, in his station and his character, who 
ventured to encounter the great scoffer, might be addressed 
the caution which was given of old to the Archangel : 



30 



" I forewarn thee shun 
His deadry arrow ; neither vainly hope 
To be invulnerable in those bright arms, 
Though temper 1 d heavenly ; for that fatal dint, 
Save Him who reigns above, none can resist." 



1. Harpagon. Harpagon, the avaricious old miser, is the leading char- 
acter in Moliere's comedy L'Avare. 

2. Scapin. A valet in Moliere's comedy Les Fourberies de Scapin. 
10. Guichard, L.a Metrie. Minor French dramatic poets. 

30. From Milton's Paradise Lost. 



FREDERIC THE GREAT. 61 

We cannot pause to recount how often that rare talent was 
exercised against rivals worthy of esteem ; how often it was 
used to crush and torture enemies worthy only of silent dis- 
dain ; how often it was perverted to the more noxious purpose 
of destroying the last solace of earthly misery, and the last 5 
restraint on earthly power. Neither can we pause to tell how 
often it was used to vindicate justice, humanity, and tolera- 
tion, the principles of sound philosophy, the principles of free 
government. This is not the place for a full character of 
Voltaire. 10 

Causes of quarrel multiplied fast. Voltaire, who, partly 
from love of money, and partly from love of excitement, was 
always fond of stockjobbing, became implicated in transactions 
of at least a dubious character. The King was delighted at 
having such an opportunity to humble his guest ; and bitter 15 
reproaches and complaints were exchanged. Voltaire, too, 
was soon at war with the other men of letters who surrounded 
the King ; and this irritated Frederic, who, however, had 
himself chiefly to blame : for, from that love of tormenting 
which was in him a ruling passion, he perpetually lavished 20 
extravagant praises on small men and bad books, merely in 
order that he might enjoy the mortification and rage which on 
such occasions Voltaire took no pains to conceal. His majesty, 
however, soon had reason to regret the pains which he had 
taken to kindle jealousy among the members of his household. 25 
The whole palace was in a ferment with literary intrigues and 
cabals. It was to no purpose that the imperial voice, which 
kept a hundred and sixty thousand soldiers in order, was 
raised to quiet the contention of the exasperated wits. It 
was far easier to stir up such a storm than to lull it. Nor was 30 
Frederic, in his capacity of wit, by any means without his own 
share of vexations. He had sent a large quantity of verses to 
Voltaire, and requested that they might be returned, with re- 
marks and corrections. "See," exclaimed Voltaire, " what a 
quantity of his dirty linen the King has sent me to wash ! " 35 

27. Cabals. A cabal is a design secretly carried out by a small body of 
men. 



G2 FREDERIC T1IK GTCEAT. 

Tale-bearers wore not wanting' to carry the sarcasm to the 
royal ear ; and Frederic was as much incensed as a Grub Street 
writer who had found his name in the Dunciad. 

This could not last. A circumstance which, when the mu- 
5 tnal regard of the friends was in its first glow, would merely 
have been matter for laughter, produced a violent explosion. 
Maupertuis enjoyed as much of Frederic's good- will as any 
man of letters. He was President of the Academy of Berlin ; 
and he stood second to Voltaire, though at an immense dis- 

10 tance, in the literary society which had been assembled at the 
Prussian court. Frederic had, by playing for his own amuse- 
ment on the feelings of the two jealous and vainglorious 
Frenchmen, succeeded in producing a bitter enmity between 
them. Voltaire resolved to set his mark, a mark never to be 

15 effaced, on the forehead of Maupertuis, and wrote the exquis- 
itely ludicrous Diatribe of Doctor Akakia. He showed this 
little piece to Frederic, who had too much taste and too much 
malice not to relish such delicious pleasantry. In truth, even at 
this time of day, it is not easy for any person who has the least 

20 perception of the ridiculous to read the jokes on the Latin city, 
the Patagonians, and the hole to the center of the earth, with- 
out laughing till he cries. But though Frederic was diverted 
by this charming pasquinade, he was unwilling that it shou'd 
get abroad. His self-love was interested. He had selected 

25 Maupertuis to fill the chair of his Academy. If all Europe 
were taught to laugh at Maupertuis, would not the reputation 
of the Academy, would not even the dignity of its royal 
patron, be in some degree compromised? The King, there- 
fore, begged Voltaire to suppress this performance. Voltaire 

30 promised to do so, and broke his word. The Diatribe was 
published, and received with shouts of merriment and applause 



2. Grub Street. A street in London inhabited by literary hacks and 
poverty-stricken authors. 

3. Diinciad. A satire by Alexander Pope, written to revenge himself 
upon his literary enemies. 

23. Pasquinade. A kind of joke or lampoon at the expense of one's 
enemy was called a pasquinade. The word is derived from the name of a 
sixteenth-century Roman cobbler, whose shop was noted as a favorite re- 
sort for scandal-mongers. 



FREDERIC THE GREAT. 63 

by all who could read the French language. The King stormed. 
Voltaire, with his usual disregard of truth, asserted his inno- 
cence, and made up some lie about a printer or an amanuensis. 
The King was not to be so imposed upon. He ordered the 
pamphlet to be burned by the common hangman, and insisted 5 
upon having an apology from Voltaire, couched in the most 
abject terms. Voltaire sent back to the King his cross, his 
key, and the patent of his pension. After this burst of rage, 
the strange pair began to be ashamed of their violence, and 
went through the forms of reconciliation. But the breach was 10 
irreparable ; and Voltaire took his leave of Frederic forever. 
They parted with cold civility ; but their hearts were big with 
resentment. Voltaire had in Ins keeping a volume of the 
King's poetry, and forgot to return it. This was, we believe, 
merely one of the oversights which men setting out upon a x 5 
journey often commit. That Voltaire could have meditated 
plagiarism is quite incredible. He would not, we are confi- 
dent, for the half of Frederic's kingdom, have consented to 
father Frederic's verses. The King, however, who rated his 
own writings much above their value, and who was inclined 20 
to see all Voltaire's actions in the worst light, was enraged to 
think that his favorite compositions were in the hands of an 
enemy, as thievish as a daw and as mischievous as a monkey. 
In the anger excited by this thought, he lost sight of reason 
and decency, and determined on committing an outrage at 25 
once odious and ridiculous. 

Voltaire had reached Frankfort. His niece, Madame Denis, 
came thither to meet him. He conceived himself secure from 
the power of his late master, when he was arrested by order 
of the Prussian resident. The precious volume was delivered 30 
up. But the Prussian agents had, no doubt, been instructed 
not to let Voltaire escape without some gross indignity. He 
was confined twelve days in a wretched hovel. Sentinels with 
fixed bayonets kept guard over him. His niece was dragged 
through the mire by the soldiers. Sixteen hundred dollars 35 

7. Cross, key, patent. See p. 59, 1. 2. 



64 FREDERIC THE GREAT. 

were extorted from him by his insolent jailers. It is absurd 
to say that this outrage is not to be attributed to the King, 
Was anybody punished for it ? Was anybody called in ques- 
tion for it ? Was it not consistent with Frederic's character ? 
5 Was it not of a piece with his conduct on other similar occa- 
sions ? Is it not notorious that he repeatedly gave private 
directions to his officers to pillage and demolish the houses of 
persons against whom he had a grudge, charging them at the 
same time to take their measures in such a way that his name 

10 might not be compromised ? He acted thus towards Count 

Bruhl in the Seven Years' War. Why should we believe that 

he would have been more scrupulous with regard to Voltaire ? 

When at length the illustrious prisoner regained his liberty, 

the prospect before him was but dreary. He was an exile both 

15 from the country of his birth and from the country of his 
adoption. The French government had taken offense at his 
journey to Prussia, and would not permit him to return to 
Paris ; and in the vicinity of Prussia it was not safe for him 
to remain. 

20 He took refuge on the beautiful shores of Lake Leman. 
There, loosed from every tie wdiich had hitherto restrained 
him, and having little to hope or to fear from courts and 
churches, he began his long war against all that, whether for 
good or evil, had authority over man ; for what Burke said of 

25 the Constituent Assembly, was eminently true of this its great 
forerunner :— Voltaire could not build : he could only pull 
down : he was the very Vitruvius of ruin. He has bequeathed 
to us not a single doctrine to be called by his name, not a 
single addition to the stock of our positive knowledge. But no 

30 human teacher ever left behind him so vast and terrible a 

24. Edmund Burke (1730-1797*. One of England's greatest statesmen 
and orators. Burke was a notably liberal-minded man. and spoke in favor 
of the independence of the American colonies, while at the same time vio- 
lently opposing the French Revolution. His speeches are marvels of Eng- 
lish prose, but it is said that most of them were delivered in the House of 
Commons before empty benches. 

27. Vitruvius. A celebrated Roman architect and writer, about whom 
very little is known. He served as a military engineer in his youth, and 
was employed under Julius Caesar in Africa in b.c. 46. His only work, De 
Architectural has been translated into English, and is the only ancient book 
on architecture in existence. 



FREDERIC THE GREAT. 65 

wreck of truths and falsehoods, of things noble and things 
base, of things useful and things pernicious. From the time 
when his sojourn beneath the Alps commenced, the dramatist, 
the wit, the historian, was merged in a more important 
character. He was now the patriarch, the founder of a sect, 5 
the chief of a conspiracy, the prince of a wide intellectual 
commonwealth. He often enjoyed a pleasure dear to the 
better part of his nature, the pleasure of vindicating innocence 
which had no other helper, of repairing cruel wrongs, of pun- 
ishing tyranny in high places. He had also the satisfaction, 10 
not less acceptable to his ravenous vanity, of hearing terrified 

u Capuchins call him the Antichrist. But whether employed in 
works of benevolence, or in works of mischief, he never forgot 

\ Potsdam and Frankfort ; and he listened anxiously to every 
murmur which indicated that a tempest was gathering in 15 
Europe, and that his vengeance was at hand. 

He soon had his wish. Maria Theresa had never for a 
moment forgotten the great wrong which she had received at 
the hand of Frederic. Young and delicate, just left an orphan, 
just about to be a mother, she had been compelled to fly 20 
from the ancient capital of her race ; she had seen her fair 
inheritance dismembered by robbers, and of those robbers he 
had been the foremost. Without a pretext, without a provoca- 
tion, in defiance of the most sacred engagements, he had 
attacked the helpless ally whom he was bound to defend. The 25 
Empress Queen had the faults as well as the virtues which are 
connected with quick sensibility and a high spirit. There was 
no peril which she was not ready to brave, no calamity which 

r> she was not ready to bring on her subjects, or on the whole 

j human race, if only she might once taste the sweetness of a 30 

complete revenge. Revenge, too, presented itself, to her 

narrow and superstitious mind, in the guise of duty. Silesia 

had been wrested not only from the House of Austria, but 

f from the Church of Rome. The conqueror had indeed per- 
* - ■ 

12. Capuchins. The Capuchins were a religious order founded in 1525 
by Matteo Baschi. They were an offshoot from the great Franciscan order. 
The name Capuchin comes from the fact that the monks were required to 
wear hoods or capuches. 






66 FREDERIC THE GREAT. 

mi tied his now subjects to worship God after their own 
fashion; bul this was not enough. To bigotry it seemed an 
intolerable hardship that the Catholic Church, having long 
enjoyed ascendency, should be compelled to content itself with 
5 equality. Nor was this the only circumstance which led Maria 
Theresa to regard her enemy as the enemy of God. The pro- 
fa neness of Frederic's writings and conversation, and the 
frightful rumors which were circulated respecting the im- 
morality of his private life, naturally shocked a Woman who 

10 believed with the firmest faith all that her confessor told her, 
and who, though surrounded by temptations, though young 
and beautiful, though ardent in all her passions, though-^ 
possessed of absolute power, had preserved her fame unsullied 
even by the breath of slander. l 

15 To recover Silesia, to humble the dynasty of Hohenzollern to 
the dust, was the great object of her life. She toiled during 
many years for this end, with zeal as indefatigable as that 
which the poet ascribes to the stately goddess who tired out 
her immortal horses in the work of raising the nations against 

20 Troy, and who offered to give up to destruction her darling 
Sparta and Mycenae, if only she might once see the smoke 
going up from the palace of Priam. With even such a spirit 
did the proud Austrian Juno strive to array against her foe a 
coalition such as Europe had never seen. Nothing would con- 

25 tent her but that the whole civilized world, from the White 
Sea to the Adriatic, from the Bay of Biscay to the pastures of 
the wild horses of the Tanais, should be combined in arms 
against one petty state. 

She early succeeded by various arts in obtaining the adhesion 1 

30 of Eussia. An ample share of spoil was promised to the King 
of Poland ; and that prince, governed by his favorite, Count 
Bruhl, readily promised the assistance of the Saxon forces. 
The great difficulty was with France. That the Houses of Bour- 
bon and of Hapsburg should ever cordially co-operate in any. 

35 great scheme of European policy, had long been thought, to use r 



18. Goddess. Juno. 



FREDERIC THE GREAT. 67 

the strong expression of Frederic, just as impossible as that fire 
and water should amalgamate. The whole history of the Con- 
tinent, during two centuries and a half, had been the history 
of the mutual jealousies and enmities of France and Austria. 
Since the administration of Richelieu, above all. it had been 5 
considered as the plain policy of the Most Christian King to 
thwart on all occasions the Court of Vienna, and to protect 
every member of the Germanic body who stood up against the 
dictation of the Caesars. Common sentiments of religion had 
been unable to mitigate this strong antipathy. The rulers of 10 
France, even while clothed in the Roman purple, even while 

~* persecuting the heretics of Rochelle and Auvergne, had still 
looked with favor on the Lutheran and Calvinistic princes 
who were struggling against the chief of the empire. If the 
French ministers paid any respect to the traditional rules 15 
handed down to them through many generations, they would 
have acted towards Frederic as the greatest of their predeces- 
sors acted towards Gustavus Adolphus. r^That there was 
deadly enmity between Prussia and Austria was of itself a 
sufficient reason for close friendship between Prussia ami 20 
France. With France Frederic could never have any serious 
controversy. ^ His territories were so situated that his ambi- 
tion, greedy and unscrupulous as it was. could never impel 
him to attack her of his own accord. He was more than half 
a Frenchman : he wrote, spoke, read nothing but French : he 25 
delighted in French society : the admiration of the French he 
proposed to himself as the best reward of all his exploits. It 
seemed incredible that any French government, however noto- 

* rious for levity or stupidity, could spurn away such an ally. 

The Court of Vienna, however, did not despair. The Aus- 30 

12. Heretics. The French Huguenots were persecuted in the most bru- 
tal way?. During the reign of Louis XIV.. for instance, dragoons were 
posted in the houses of the Huguenots, with full permission to he as abusive 
v as they wished. 

17. The greatest of their predecessors. Richelieu. 
, 1-'. Gustavus Adolphus 1594-1632). King of Sweden. During the Thirty 
Years" War lie received a petition from the persecuted German Protestants 
to be the champion of their cause. He landed in Pomerania. and at once 
plunged into the conflict. Richelieu, prime-minister of France, helped him. 
with provisions, ammunition, etc. 



08 FREDERIC THE GREAT. 

fcrian diplomatists propounded a new scheme of politics, which, 
it must be owned, was not altogether without plausibility. 
The great powers, according to this theory, had long been 
under a delusion. They had looked on each other as natural 
5 enemies, while in truth they were natural allies. A succession 
of cruel wars had devastated Europe, had thinned the popula- 
tion, had exhausted the public resources, had loaded govern- ^ 
ments with an immense burden of debt ; and when, after two 1 
hundred years of murderous hostility or of hollow truce, the 

io illustrious Houses whose enmity had distracted the world sat 
down to count their gains, to what did the real advantage on ( 
either side amount ? Simply to this, that they had kept each 1 " 
other from thriving. It was not the King of France, it was 
not the Emperor, who had reaped the fruits of the Thirty* 

15 Years' War, or of the War of the Pragmatic Sanction. Those 
fruits had been pilfered by states of the second and third rank, 
which, secured against jealousy by their insignificance, had dex- 
terously aggrandized themselves while pretending to serve the 
animosity of the great chiefs of Christendom. While the lion 

20 and tiger were tearing each other, the jackal had run oif into 
the jungle with the prey. The real gainer by the Thirty Years' 
War had been neither France nor Austria, but Sweden. The 
real gainer by the War of the Pragmatic Sanction had been 
neither France nor Austria, but the upstart of Brandenburg. 

25 France had made great efforts, had added largely to her mili- 
tary glory, and largely to her public burdens ; and for what 
end ? Merely that Frederic might rule Silesia. For this and 
this alone one French army, wasted by sword and famine, had 
perished in Bohemia ; and another had purchased, with floods* 

30 of the noblest blood, the barren glory of Fontenoy. And this 
prince, for whom France had suffered so much, was he a grate- 
ful, was he even an honest ally ? Had he not been as false to 



14. Thirty Years' War. From 1618 until 1648 all Europe was aflame 
with war. The war may be divided into two great periods. The first had a 
predominant religious character. It was a general attack by Catholic Eu- 
rope upon Protestant Europe. The second part was composed of political 
wars— wars against the power of the House of Hapsburg, and wars of con- 
quest on the part of Sweden and France on German soil. 



: 1 



FREDERIC THE GREAT. 69 

the Court of Versailles as to the Court of Vienna? Had he 
not played, on a large scale, the same part which, in private 
life, is played by the vile agent of chicane who sets his neigh- 
bors quarreling, involves them in costly and interminable 
litigation, and betrays them to each other all round, certain 5 
that, whoever may be ruined, he shall be enriched ? Surely the 
| true wisdom of the great powers was to attack, not each other, 
| but this common barrator, who, by inflaming the passions of 
both, by pretending to serve both, and by deserting both, had 
J raised himself above the station to which he was born. The 10 
' great object of Austria was to regain Silesia ; the great object 
-of France was to obtain an accession of territory on the side of 
Flanders. If they took opposite sides, the result would prob- 
L *ably be that, after a war of many years, after the slaughter of 
many thousands of brave men, after the waste of many mil- 15 
lions of crowns, they would lay down their arms without 
having achieved either object ; but, if they came to an under- 
standing, there would be no risk, and no difficulty. Austria 
would willingly make in Belgium such cessions as France 
could not expect to obtain by ten pitched battles. Silesia 20 
would easily be annexed to the monarchy of which it had long 
been a part. The union of two such powerful governments 
would at once overawe the King of Prussia. If he resisted, 
one short campaign would settle his fate. France and Austria, 
long accustomed to rise from the game of war both losers, 25 
would, for the first time, both be gainers. There could be no 
room for jealousy between them. The power of both would 
be increased at once ; the equilibrium between them would be 
•preserved ; and the only sufferer would be a mischievous and 
unprincipled buccaneer, who deserved no tenderness from 30 
either. 
These doctrines, attractive from their novelty and ingenuity, 
. soon became fashionable at the supper-parties and in the 
coffeehouses of Paris, and were espoused by every gay marquis 
find every facetious abbe who was admitted to see Madame de 35 

8. Barrator. One who stirs up quarrels, hoping to reap some benefit 
from them for himself, 



?Q FREDERIC THE GREAT. 

Pompadour's hair curled and powdered. It was not, however, 
to any political theory that the strange coalition between 
France and Austria owed its origin. The real motive which 
induced the great continental powers to forget their old ani- 
5 niosities and their old state maxims, was personal aversion to 
the King of Prussia. This feeling was strongest in Maria 
Theresa ; but it was by no means confined to her. Frederic, 
in some respects a good master, was emphatically a bad neigh- 
bor. That he w r as hard in all dealings, and quick to take all ad- 

io vantages, w T as not his most odious fault. His bitter and scoff- 
ing speech had inflicted keener wounds than his ambition. In 
his character of wit he was under less restraint than even in * 
his character of ruler. Satirical verses against all the princes 
and ministers of Europe were ascribed to his pen. In his letters ' 

15 and conversation he alluded to the greatest potentates of the 
age in terms which would have better suited Colle, in a war of 
repartee with young Crebillon at Pelletier's table, than a great 
sovereign speaking of great sovereigns. About women he was 
in the habit of expressing himself in a manner which it was 

20 impossible for the meekest of women to forgive ; and, unfor- 
tunately for him, almost the whole Continent was then gov- 
erned by women who were by no means conspicuous for meek- 
ness. Maria Theresa herself had not escaped his scurrilous 
jests. The Empress Elizabeth of Russia knew that her gallan- 

25 tries afforded him a favorite theme for ribaldry and invective. 
Madame de Pompadour, who was really the head of the French 
government, had been even more keenly galled. She had 
attempted, by the most delicate flattery, to propitiate the 
King of Prussia ; but her messages had drawn from him only, 
dry and sarcastic replies. The Empress Queen took a very. 1 

3° different course. Though the haughtiest of princesses, though 
the most austere of matrons, she forgot in her thirst for re- 



1. Madame de Pompadour (1721-1764). A woman whose beauty and ■ 
accomplishments obtained for her the signal favor of Louis XV. of Fiance. 
She retained a dominant influence over him till her death. She appointed- 
generals and ministers, and received ambassadors from foreign courts. 

16. Charles CollG (1709 1783). A French comic writer who attained some 
success in his day. 



FREDERIC THE GREAT. 71 

venge both the dignity of her race and the purity of her char- 
acter, and condescended to flattery. Maria Theresa actually 
wrote with her own hand a note, full of expressions of esteem 
and friendship, to her clear cousin, the daughter of the butcher 
Poisson, the wife of the publican D'Etioles, a strange cousin 5 
for the descendant of so many Emperors of the West ! Ma- 
dame de Pompadour was completely gained over, and easily 
carried her point with Lewis, who had, indeed, wrongs of his 
own to resent. His feelings were not quick ; but contempt, 
says the Eastern proverb, pierces even through the shell of the 10 
tortoise ; and neither prudence nor decorum had ever re- 
strained Frederic from expressing his measureless contempt 
for the sloth, the imbecility, and the baseness of Lewis. 
France was thus induced to join the coalition ; and the exam- 
ple of France determined the conduct of Sweden, then com- 15 
pletely subject to French influence. 

The enemies of Frederic were surely strong enough to 
attack him openly ; but they were desirous to acid to all their 
other advantages the advantage of a surprise. He was not, 
however, a man to be taken off his guard. He had tools in 20 
every court ; and he now received from Vienna, from Dresden, 
and. from Paris, accounts so circumstantial and so consistent, 
that he could not doubt of his clanger. He learnt, that he 
was to be assailed at once by France, Austria, Russia, Saxony, 
Sweden, and the Germanic body ; that the greater part of his 25 
dominions was to be portioned out among his enemies ; that 
France, which from her geographical position could not di- 
rectly share in his spoils, was to receive an equivalent in the 
* Netherlands ; that Austria was to have Silesia, and the 
) Czarina East Prussia ; that Augustus of Saxouy expected 3° 
Magdeburg ; and that Sweden would be rewarded with part 
of Pomerania. If these designs succeeded, the house of 
Brandenburg would at once sink in the European system to a 
r place lower than that of the Duke of Wurtemburg or the 
, Margrave of Baden. 35 

And what hope was there that these designs would fail ? 
£To such union of the continental powers had been seen for 



FREDERIC THE GREAT. 

A less formidable confederacy had in a week conquered 
all the provinces of Venice, when Venice was at the height of 
power, wealth, and glory. A less formidable confederacy had 
compelled Lewis the Fourteenth to bow down his haughty 
5 head to the very earth. A less formidable confederacy has, 
within our own memory, subjugated a still mightier empire, 
and abased a still prouder name. Such odds had never been 
heard of in war. The people whom Frederic ruled were not 
five millions. The population of the countries which were 

10 leagued against him amounted to a hundred millions. The 
disproportion in wealth was at least equally great. Small 
communities, actuated by strong sentiments of patriotism or 
loyalty, have sometimes made head against great monarchies 
weakened by factions and discontents. But, small as was 

J 5 Frederic's kingdom, it probably contained a greater number 
of disaffected subjects than w T ere to be found in all the states 
of his enemies. Silesia formed a fourth part of his dominions ; 
and from the Silesians, born under Austrian princes, the 
utmost that he could expect w T as apathy. From the Siiesian 

20 Catholics he could hardly expect anything but resistance. 

Some states have been enabled, by their geographical* posi- 
tion, to defend themselves with advantage against immense 
force. The sea has repeatedly protected England against the 
fury of the whole continent. The Venetian government, 

25 driven from its possessions on the land, could still bid defiance 
to the confederates of Cambray from the Arsenal amidst the 
lagoons. More than one great and well-appointed army, 
which regarded the shepherds of Switzerland as an easy prey 
has perished in the passes of the Alps. Frederic had no such 

30 advantage. The form of his states, their situation, the nature 
of the ground, all were against him. His long, scattered, 
straggling territory, seemed to have been shaped with an 
express view to the convenience of invaders, and was protected 
by no sea, by no chain of hills. Scarcely any corner of it Avas 

G. A still mightier empire. In 1815 at the battle of Waterloo the 
Emperor Napoleon was utterly defeated by the English under Wellington, 
assisted by the allied powers of Europe. 



FREDERIC THE GREAT. < 6 

a week's march from the territory of the enemy. The capital 
itself, in the event of war, would be constantly exposed to 
insult. In truth there was hardly a politician or a soldier in 
Europe who doubted that the conflict would be terminated in 
a very few days by the prostration of the House of Branden- 5 
burg. 

Nor was Frederic's own opinion very different. He antici- 
pated nothing short of his own ruin, and of the ruin of his 
family. Yet there was still a chance, a slender chance, of 
escape. His states had at least the advantage of a central 10 
position ; his enemies were widely separated from each other, 
and could not conveniently unite their overwhelming forces 
on one point. They inhabited diiferent climates, and it was 
probable that the season of the year which would be best 
suited to the military operations of one portion of the league 15 
would be unfavorable to those of another portion. The 
Prussian monarchy, too, was free from some infirmities w T hich 
w r ere found in empires far more extensive and magnificent. 
Its effective strength for a desperate struggle was not to be 
measured merely by the number of square miles or the number 20 
of people. In that spare but well-knit and well-exercised 
body there was nothing but sinew, and muscle, and bone. 
No public creditors looked for dividends. No distant colonies 
required defense. No court, filled with flatterers and mis- 
tresses, devoured the pay of fifty battalions. The Prussian 25 
army, though far inferior in number to the troops which were 
about to be opposed to it, was yet strong out of all proportion 
to the extent of the Prussian dominions. It was also admira- 
bly trained and admirably officered, accustomed to obey and 
accustomed to conquer. The revenue was not only unincum- 30 
bered by debt, but exceeded the ordinary outlay in time of 
peace. Alone of all the European princes, . Frederic had a 
treasure laid up for a day of difficulty. Above all, he was one, 
and his enemies were many. In their camps w r ould certainly 
be found the jealousy, the dissension, the slackness, insepara- 35 
ble from coalitions ; on his side was the energy, the unity, the 
secrecy of a strong dictatorship. To a certain extend the $e^ 



7-4 FREDERIC THE GREAT. 

ficiency of military moans might be supplied by the resources 

j of military art. Small as the King's army was, when com- 
pared with the six hundred thousand men whom the confed- 
erates could bring into the field, celerity of movement might 
5 in some degree compensate for deficiency of bulk. It was 
thus just possible that genius, judgment, resolution, and good- 
luck united, might protract the struggle during a campaign or 
two ; and to gain even a month was of importance. It could 
not be long before the vices which are found in all extensive 

10 confederacies would begin to show themselves. Every mem- 
ber of the league would think his own share of the war too 
large, and his own share of the spoils too small. Complaints 
and recriminations would abound. The Turk might stir on 
the Danube ; the statesmen of France might discover the error 

15 which they had committed in abandoning the fundamental 
principles of their national policy. Above all, death might 
rid Prussia of its most formidable enemies. The war Was the 
effect of the personal aversion with which three or four sover- 
eigns regarded Frederic ; and the decease of any one of those 

20 sovereigns might produce a complete revolution in the state of 
Europe. 

In the midst of a horizon generally dark and stormy, Fred- 
eric could discern one bright spot. The peace which had been 
concluded between England and France in 1748 had been in 

25 Europe no more than an armistice, and had not even been an 
armistice in the other quarters of the globe. In India the 
sovereignty of the Carnatic was disputed between two great 
Mussulman houses ; Fort Saint George had taken one side, 
Pondicherry the other ; and in a series of battles and sieges 

30 the troops of Lawrence and Clive had been opposed to those of 
Dupleix. A struggle less important in its consequences, but 
not less likely to produce irritation, was carried on between 
those French and English adventurers who kidnapped negroes 
and collected gold-dust on the coast of Guinea. But it was in 

27. Carnatic. A region on the east coast of India now included in the 
province of Madras. The Carnatic is no longer an administrative division, 
but is memorable as the theater of the struggle of last century between 
France and England for supremacy in India. 



FREDERIC THE GREAT. 75 

North America that the emulation and mutual aversion of the 
two nations were most conspicuous. The French attempted to 
hem in the English colonists by a chain of military "posts, ex- 
tending from the Great Lakes to the mouth of the Mississippi. 
The English took arms. The wild aboriginal tribes appeared 5 
on each side mingled with the Pale Faces. Battles were 
fought ; forts were stormed ; and hideous stories about stakes, 
scalpings, and death-songs reached Europe, and inflamed that 
national animosity which the rivalry of ages had produced. 
The disputes between France and England came to a crisis at 10 
the very time when the tempest which had been gathering was 
about to burst on Prussia. The tastes and interests of Fred- 
eric would have led him, if he had been allowed an option, to 
side with the House of Bourbon. But the folly of the Court 
of Versailles left him no choice. France became the tool ofi5 
Austria ; and Frederic was forced to become the ally of Eng- 
land. He could not, indeed, expect that a power which cov- 
ered the sea with its fleets, and which had to make war at 
once on the Ohio and the Ganges, would be able to spare a 
large number of troops for operations in Germany. But Eng- 20 
land, though poor compared with the England of our time, 
was far richer than any country on the Continent. The 
amount of her revenue, and the resources which she found in 
her credit, though they may be thought small by a generation 
which has seen her raise a hundred and thirty millions in a 25 
single year, appeared miraculous to the politicians of that age. 
A very moderate portion of her wealth, expended by an able 
and economical prince, in a country where prices were low, 
would be sufficient to equip and maintain a formidable army. 

Such was the situation in which Frederic found himself. 30 
He saw the whole extent of his peril. He saw that there was 
still a faint possibility of escape ; and, with prudent temerity, 
he determined to strike the first blow 7 . It was in the month 
of August 1756, that the great war of the Seven Years com- 
menced. The King demanded of the Empress Queen a dis- 35 
tinct explanation of her intentions, and plainly told her that 
he should consider a refusal as a declaration of war. ' ' I 



76 FREDERIC THE GREAT. 

want," he said, :i no answer in the stylo of an oracle." He re- 
ceived an answer at once haughty and evasive. In an instant 
the rich electorate of Saxony was overflowed by sixty thousand 
Prussian troops. Augustus with his army occupied a strong 
5 position at Pirna. The Queen of Poland was at Dresden. In 
a few days Pirna was blockaded and Dresden was taken. The 
first object of Frederic was to obtain possession of the Saxon 
State Papers ; for those papers, he well knew 7 , contained ample 
proofs that, though apparently an aggressor, he was really 

10 acting in self-defense. The Qneen of Poland, as well ac- 
quainted as Frederic with the importance of those documents, 
had packed them up, had concealed them in her bed-chamber, 
and was about to send them off to Warsaw, when a Prussian 
officer made his appearance. In the hope that no soldier 

15 would venture to outrage a lady, a queen, the daughter of an 
emperor, the mother-in-law of a dauphin, she placed herself 
before the trunk, and at length sat down on it. But all re- 
sistance was vain. The papers were carried to Frederic, who 
found in them, as he expected, abundant evidence of the de- 

20 signs of the coalition. The most important documents were 
instantly published, and the effect of the publication was 
great. It was clear that, of whatever sins the King of Prussia 
might formerly have been guilty, he was now the injured 
party, and had merely anticipated a blow intended to destroy 

25 him. 

The Saxon camp at Pirna was in the mean time closely in- 
vested ; but the besieged were not without hopes of succor. 
A great Austrian army under Marshal Brown w r as about to 
pour through the passes w r hich separate Bohemia from Saxony. 

30 Frederic left at Pirna a force sufficient to deal with the 
Saxons, hastened into Bohemia, encountered Brown at Lowo- 
sitz, and defeated him. This battle decided the fate of 
Saxony. Augustus and his favorite Bruhl fled to Poland. 



4. Frederic Augustus II. (169G-17C3). The Elector of Saxony and King 
of Poland. 

28. Maximilian Browne (1705-1757"). A famous general in the Austrian 
service. Frederic used to call him hjs teacher in the art of war, 



FREDERIC THE GREAT. 77 

The whole army of the electorate capitulated. From that 
time till the end of the war Frederic treated Saxony as a part 
of his dominions, or, rather, he acted towards the Saxons in 
a manner which may serve to illustrate the whole meaning 
of that tremendous sentence, " subjectos tanquam suos, viles 5 
tanquam alienos." Saxony was as much in his power as 
Brandenburg ; and he had no such interest in the welfare of 
Saxony as he had in the welfare of Brandenburg. He accord- 
ingly levied troops and exacted contributions throughout the 
enslaved province with far more rigor than in any part of his 10 
own dominions. Seventeen thousand men who had been in 
the camp at Pirna were half compelled, half persuaded to 
enlist under their conqueror. Thus, within a few weeks from 
the commencement of hostilities, one of the confederates had 
been disarmed, and his weapons were now pointed against the 15 
rest. 

The winter put a stop to military operations. All had 
hitherto gone well. But the real tug of war was still to come. 
It was easy to foresee that the year 1757 would be a memora- 
ble era in the history of Europe. 20 

The King's scheme for the campaign was simple, bold, and 
judicious. The Duke of Cumberland with an English and 
Hanoverian army was in Western Germany, and might be 
able to prevent the French troops from attacking Prussia. 
The Kussians, confined by their snows, would probably not 25 
stir till the spring was far advanced. Saxony was prostrated. 
Sweden could do nothing very important. During a few 
months Frederic would have to deal with Austria alone. 
Even thus the odds were against him. But ability and cour- 
age have often triumphed against odds still more formidable. 30 

Early in 1757 the Prussian army in Saxony began to move. 
Through four defiles in the mountains they came pouring into 
Bohemia. Prague was the King's first mark ; but the ulterior 
object was probably Vienna. At Prague lay Marshal Brown 
with one great army. Daun, the most cautious and fortunate 35 



6. They were as much under his sway as were his own people, yet they 
were as little cared for as men of other nations would have been. 



5 vi 



'° FRBDERIC THE GREAT. 

of the Austrian captains, was advancing with another Fred- 
one determined to overwhelm Brown before Daun should 
arrive. On the sixth of May was fought, under those walls 
which, a hundred and thirty years before, had witnessed the 
victory of the Catholic league and the flight of the unhappy 
Palatine, a battle more bloody than any which Europe saw 
(luring the long interval between Malplaquet and Eylau The 
King and Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick were distinguished 
on that day by their valor and exertions. But the chief <dory 
io was with Schwerin. When the Prussian infantry wavered 
the stout old marshal snatched the colors from an ensign and' 
waving them in the air, led back his regiment to the charge' 
Thus at seventy-two years of age he fell in the thickest bat- 
tle, still grasping the standard which bears the black eagle on 
15 the field argent. The victory remained with the King ; but it 
had been dearly purchased. Whole columns of his bravest 
warriors had fallen. He admitted that he had lost eighteen 
thousand men. Of the enemy, twenty-four thousand had 
been kdled, wounded, or taken. 
20 Part of the defeated army was shut up in Prague. Part 
fled to join the troops which, under the command of Daun 
were now close at hand. Frederic determined to play over 
the same game which had succeeded at Lowositz. He left a 
large force to besiege Prague, and at the head of thirty thou- 
25 sand men he marched against Daun. The cautious Marshal 
though he had a great superiority in numbers, would risk 
nothing. He occupied at Kolin a position almost impregnable 
and awaited the attack of the King. 
It was the eighteenth of June, a day which, if the Greek 
30 superstition still retained its influence, would be held sacred 
to Nemesis, a day on which the two greatest princes of modern 
times were taught, by a terrible experience, that neither skill 
nor valor can fix the inconstancy of fortune. The battle began 



: 



FREDERIC THE GREAT. 79 

before noon ; and part of the Prussian army maintained the 
contest till after the midsummer sun had gone down. But at 
length the King found that his troops, having been repeatedly 
driven back with frightful carnage, could no longer be led to 
the charge. He was with difficulty persuaded to quit the field. 5 
The officers of his personal staff were under the necessity of- 
expostulating with him, and one of them took the liberty to 
say, %k Does your Majesty mean to storm the batteries alone ? " 
Thirteen thousand of his bravest followers had perished. 
Nothing remained for him but to retreat in good order, to 10 
raise the siege of Prague, and to hurry his army by different 
routes out of Bohemia. ' 

This stroke seemed to be final. Frederic's situation had at 
best been such, that only an uninterrupted run of good-luck 
could save him, as it seemed, from ruin. And now, almost in 15 
the outset of the contest, he had met with a check which, even 
in a war between equal powers, would have been felt as serious. 
He had owed much to the opinion which all Europe enter- 
tained of his army. Since his accession, his soldiers had in 
many successive battles been victorious over the Austrians. 20 
But the glory had departed from his arms. All whom his 
malevolent sarcasms had wounded, made haste to avenge 
themselves by scoffing at the scoffer. His soldiers had ceased 
to confide in his star. In every part of his camp his disposi- 
tions were severely criticised. Even in his own family he had 25 
detractors. His next brother William, heir-presumptive, or 
rather in truth heir-apparent, to the throne, and great-grand- 
father of the present King, could not refrain from lamenting 
his own fate and that of the House of Hohenzollern, once so 
great and so prosperous, but now, by the rash ambition of its 30 
chief, made a by-word to all nations. These complaints, and 
some blunders which Willi am committed during the retreat 
from Bohemia, called forth the bitter displeasure of the inex- 
orable King. The prince's heart was broken by the cutting re- 
proaches of his brother ; he quitted the army, retired to a 35 
country-seat, and in a short time died of shame and vexation. 

It seemed that the King's distress could hardly be increased. 



80 FREDERIC THE (J UK AT. 

Yel at this moment another blow riot loss terrible than that of 
Kolin fell upon him. The French under Marshal D'Estrees 
had invaded Germany. The Duke of Cumberland had given 
them battle at llastembeck, and had been defeated. In order 
5 to save the Electorate of Hanover from entire subjugation, he 
had made, at Closter Sevan, an arrangement with the French 
Generals, which left them at liberty to turn their arms against 
the Prussian dominions. 

That nothing might be wanting to Frederic's distress, he 

10 lost his mother just at this time ; and he appears to have felt 
the loss more than was to be expected from the hardness and 
severity of his character. In truth, his misfortunes had now 
cut to the quick. The mocker, the tyrant, the most rigorous, 
the most imperious, the most cynical of men, was very un- 

15 happy. His face was so haggard and his form so thin, that 
when on his return from Bohemia he passed through Leipsic, 
the people hardly knew him again. His sleep was broken ; 
the tears, in spite of himself, often started into his eyes ; and 
the grave began to present itself to his agitated mind as the 

2obest refuge from misery and dishonor. His resolution was 
fixed never to be taken alive, and never to make peace on con- 
dition of descending from his place among the powers of 
Europe. He saw nothing left for him except to die ; and he 
deliberately chose his mode of death. He always carried about 

25 with him a sure and speedy poison in a small glass case ; and 
to the few in whom he placed confidence, he made no mystery 
of his resolution. 

But we should very imperfectly describe the state of Fred- 
eric's mind, if we left out of view r the laughable peculiarities 

30 which contrasted so singularly with the gravity, energy, and 
harshness of his character. It is difficult to say whether the 
tragic or the comic predominated in the strange scene which 
war. then acting. In the midst of all the great King's calami- 
ties, his passion for writing indifferent poetry grew stronger 

35 and stronger. Enemies all round him, despair in his heart, 
pills of corrosive sublimate hidden in his clothes, he poured 
forth hundreds upon hundreds of lines, hateful to gods and 



FREDERIC THE GREAT. 81 

men, the insipid clregs of Voltaire's Hippocrene, the faint echo 
of the lyre of Chaulieu. It is amusing to compare what he 
did during the last months of 1757, with what he wrote during 
the same time. It may be doubted whether any equal portion 
of the life of Hannibal, of Caesar, or of Napoleon, will bear a 5 
comparison with that short period, the most brilliant in the 
history of Prussia and of Frederic. Yet at this very time the 
scanty leisure of the illustrious warrior was employed in pro- 
ducing odes and epistles, a little better than Cibber's and a 
little worse than Hayley "s. Here and there a manly sentiment I0 
which deserves to be in prose makes its appearance in com- 
pany with Prometheus and Orpheus, Elysium and Acheron, 
the plaintive Philomel, the poppies of Morpheus, and all the 
other frippery which, like a robe tossed by a proud beauty to 
her waiting-woman, has long been contemptuously abandoned 15 
by genius to mediocrity. We hardly know any instance of the 
strength and weakness of human nature so striking, and so 
grotesque, as the character of this haughty, vigilant, resolute, 
sagacious blue-stocking, half Mithridates and half Trissotin, 



1. Hippocrene. The fountain of the Muses. Longfellow calls poetic 
inspiration "a maddening draught of Hippocrene." 

2. Guillaunie de Chaulieu (1639-1720). A French lyric poet. Voltaire 
praises him in his Temple du Gout, where he advises Chaulieu not to 
estimate himself the best of good poets, but the first of negligent poets 
(pontes negliges). 

5. Napoleon. Napoleon was defeated at Waterloo June 18th. 

9. Colley Cibber (1671-1757). A witty English dramatic author and 
actor. He effected something of a reform in the English stage ; that is, he 
tried to make it a little less vulgar, and though to our eyes his plays may 
seem not over nice, yet as compared with what had been in vogue before 
his time, they were perfectly refined. 

Cibber wrote an amusing Apology for the Life of Colley Cibber, which 
Dr. Johnson pronounced "very well done. 1 ' Cibber is a prominent charac- 
ter in Pope's Dunciad. 

10. William Hayley (1745-1820). An English author, not without taste, 
but whose poetry is infected with mawkish sentimentality. Sou they once 
remarked, " Everything about that man is good except his poetry. " 

12. Prometbeus, Orpheus. Prometheus, having stolen fire from heaven 
for the benefit of man, was punished by being chained to a pillar while an 
eagle tore out his heart. Orpheus was the musician on whose notes all 
nature hung enchanted. 

12. Elysium, Acheron, Philomel, Morpheus. In Greek mythology, 
Elysium was the home of the good and brave after death. Acheron was 
the river in Hades across which the dead were ferried by Charon. Philomel, 
being pursued by her brother-in-law, who wished to kill her, was changed 
into a nightingale. Morpheus was the Greek god of sleep. 

19. Trissotin. In Moliere's comedy. Les Femmes Savantes, Trissotin is a 
character. He typifies the shallow wit of Moliere's day.; 



8*2 FREDERIC THE GREAT. 

bearing up against a world in arms, with an ounce of poison 
in one pocket and a quire of bad verses in the other. 

Frederick had some time before made advances towards a 
reconciliation with Voltaire ; and some civil letters had passed 
5 between them. After the battle of Kolin their epistolary in- 
tercourse became, at least in seeming, friendly and confiden- 
tial. We do not know any collection of Letters which throws 
so much light on the darkest and most intricate parts of 
human nature, as the correspondence of these strange beings 

io after they had exchanged forgiveness. Both felt that the 
quarrel had lowered them in the public estimation. They ad- 
mired each other. They stood in need of each other. The 
great King wished to be handed down to posterity by the great 
Writer. The great Writer felt himself exalted by the homage 

15 of the great King. Yet the wounds which they had in- 
flicted on each other were too deep to be effaced, or even per- 
fectly healed. Not only did the scars remain ; the sore places 
often festered and bled afresh. The letters consisted for the 
most part of compliments, thanks, offers of service, assurances 

20 of attachment. But if anything brought back to Frederic's 
recollection the cunning and mischievous pranks by which 
Voltaire had provoked him, some expression of contempt and 
displeasure broke forth in the midst of eulogy. It was much 
worse when anything recalled to the mind of Voltaire the out- 

25 rages which he and his kinswoman had suffered at Frankfort. 
All at once his flowing panegyric was turned into invective. 
' ' Remember how you behaved to me. For your sake I have 
lost the favor of my native king. For your sake I am an exile 
from my country. I loved you. I trusted myself to you. I 

30 had no wish but to end my life in your service. And what 
was my reward ? Stripped of all that you had bestowed on 
me, the key, the order, the pension, I was forced to fly from 
your territories. I was hunted as if I had been a deserter 
from your grenadiers. I was arrested, insulted, plundered. 

35 My niece was dragged through the mud of Frankfort by your 
soldiers, as if she had been some wretched follower of your 
camp. You have great talents. You have good qualities. 



FREDERIC THE GREAT. 83 

But you have one odious vice. You delight in the abasement 
of your fellow-creatures. You have brought disgrace on the 
name of philosopher. You have given some color to the 
slanders of the bigots, who say that no confidence can be 
placed in the justice or humanity of those who reject the ! 
Christian faith." Then the King answers, with less heat but 
Yl equal severity: " You know that you behaved shamefully in 
( I Prussia. It was well for you that you had to deal with a man 
( '.so indulgent to the infirmities of genius as I am. You richly 
.'deserved to see the inside of a dungeon. Your talents are not 



t 



n lore widely known than your faithlessness and your malevo- 
lence. The grave itself is no asylum from your spite. Mau- 
pertuis is dead ; but you still go on calumniating and deriding 
him, as if you had not made him miserable enough while he 
was living. Let us have no more of this. And, above all, 15 
let me hear no more of your niece. I am sick to death of her 
name. I can bear with your faults for the sake of your mer- 
its ; but she has not written Mahomet or Merope." 

An explosion of this kind, it might be supposed, would nec- 
essarily put an end to all amicable communication. But it 20 
was not so. After every outbreak of ill-humor this extraordi- 
nary pair became more loving than before, and exchanged 
compliments and assurances of mutual regard with a wonder- 
ful air of sincerity. 

It may well be supposed that men who wrote thus to each 25 
other, were not very guarded in what they said of each other. 
The English ambassador, Mitchell, who knew that the King of 
Prussia was constantly writing to Voltaire with the greatest 
freedom on the most important subjects, was amazed to hear 
his Majesty designate this highly favored correspondent as a 30* 
bad-hearted fellow, the greatest rascal on the face of the 
earth. And the language which the poet held about the King; 
was not much more respectful. 

It would probably have puzzled Voltaire himself to say what 
; was his real feeling towards Frederic. It-was compounded of 35 
all sentiments, from enmity to friendship, and from scorn to 
admiration ; and the proportions in which these elements were 



84 FREDERIC THE GREAT. 

mixed, changed every moment. The old patriarch resembled 
the spoiled child who screams, stamps, cuffs, laughs, kisses, 
and cuddles within one quarter of an hour. His resentment 
was not extinguished ; yet he was not without sympathy for 
5 his old friend. As a Frenchman, he wished success to the 
arms of his country. As a philosopher, he was anxious for 
the stability of a throne on which a philosopher sat. He 
longed both to save and to humble Frederic. There was one 
way, and only one, in which all his conflicting feelings could 

io at once be gratified. If Frederic were preserved by the inter- 
ference of France, if it were known that for that interferencf 
he was indebted to the mediation of Voltaire, this would in 
deed be delicious revenge ; this w T ould indeed be to heap coals 
of fire on that haughty head. Nor did the vain and restless 

15 poet think it impossible that he might, from his hermitage 
near the Alps, dictate peace to Europe. D'Estrees had quitted 
Hanover, and the command of the French army had been in- 
trusted to the Duke of Eichelieu, a man whose chief distinc- 
tion was derived from his success in gallantry. Eichelieu was 

20 in truth the most eminent of that race of seducers by profes- 
sion, who furnished Crebillon the younger and La Clos with 
models for their heroes. In his earlier days the royal house 
itself had not been secure from his presumptuous love. He 
was believed to have carried his Conquests into the family of 

2 5 Orleans ; and some suspected that he was not unconcerned in 
the mysterious remorse which embittered the last hours of the 
charming mother of Lewis the Fifteenth. But the Duke was 
now sixty years old. With a heart deeply corrupted by vice, 
a head long accustomed to think only on trifles, an impaired 

30 constitution, an impaired fortune, and, worst of all, a very 
red nose, he was entering on a dull, frivolous, and uninspected 
old age. Without one qualification for military command, 
except that personal courage which was common between him 
and the whole nobility of France, he had been placed at the 

16. D'Estrees. A French field-marshal. 

18. Duke of Richelieu. A grand nephew of the great Cardinal 
Richelieu. 



FREDERIC THE GREAT. 85 

head of the army of Hanover ; and in that situation he did 
his best to repair, by extortion and corruption, the injury 
which he had done to his property, by a life of dissolute pro- 
fusion. 

The Duke of Richelieu to the end of his life hated the phi- 5 
losophers as a sect, not for those parts of their system which 
a good and wise man would have condemned, but for their 
virtues, for their spirit of free inquiry, and for their hatred of 
those social abuses of which he was himself the personification. 
i But he, like many of those who thought with him, excepted 10 
J Voltaire from the list of proscribed writers. He frequently 
sent flattering letters to Ferney. He did the patriarch the 
honor to borrow money of him, and even carried this conde- 
scending friendship so far as to forget to pay the interest. 
Voltaire thought that it might be in his power to bring the 15 
Duke and the King of Prussia into communication with each 
other. He wrote earnestly to both ; and he so far succeeded 
that a correspondence between them was commenced. 

But it was to very ditferent means that Frederic was to owe 
his deliverance. At the beginning of November, the net 20 
seemed to have closed completely round him. The Russians 
were in the field, and were spreading devastation through his 
eastern provinces. Silesia >vas overrun by the Austrians. A 
great French army was advancing from the west under the 
command of Marshal Soubise, a prince of the great Armorican 25 
house of Rohan. Berlin itself had been taken and plundered 
by the Croatians. Such was the situation from which Frederic 
extricated himself, with dazzling glory, in the short space of 
thirty days. 

He marched first against Soubise. On the fifth of Novem- 30 
ber the armies met at Rosbach. The French were two to one ; 
but they were ill-disciplined, and their general was a dunce. 
The tactics of Frederic, and the well-regulated valor of the 
Prussian troops, obtained a complete victory. Seven thousand 
of the invaders were made prisoners. Their guns, their colors, 35 

12. Ferney. Voltaire's home on Lake Geneva. 



86 FREDERIC THE GREAT. 

fcheir baggage, fell into the hands of the conquerors. Those 
who escaped fled as confusedly as a mob scattered by cavalry. 
Victorious in the west, the King turned his arms towards 
Silesia. In that quarter everything seemed to be lost. Bres- 
5 Ian had fallen ; and Charles of Loraine, with a mighty power, 
held the whole province. On the fifth of December, exactly 
one month after the battle of Kosbach, Frederic, with forty 
thousand men, and Prince Charles, at the head of not less 
than sixty thousand, met at Lenthen, hard by Breslan. The 

io King, who was, in general, perhaps too much inclined to con- 
sider the common soldier as a mere machine, resorted, on this $ 
great day, to means resembling those which Bonaparte after- 
wards employed with such signal success for the purpose of 
stimulating military enthusiasm. The principal officers were 

15 convoked. Frederic addressed them with great force and 
pathos ; and directed them to speak to their men as he had 
spoken to them. When the armies were set in battle array, 
the Prussian troops were in a state of fierce excitement ; but 
their excitement showed itself after the fashion of a grave 

20 people. The columns advanced to the attack chanting, to the 
sound of drums and fifes, the rude hymns of the old Saxon 
Sternholcls. They had never fought so well ; nor had the 
genius of their chief ever been so conspicuous. " That battle," 
said Napoleon, " was a masterpiece. Of itself it is sufficient 

25 to entitle Frederic to a place in the first rank among generals." 
The victory was complete. Twenty-seven thousand Austrians 
were killed, wounded, or taken ; fifty stand of colors, a hun- 
dred guns, four thousand wagons, fell into the hands of the 
Prussians. Breslan opened its gates ; Silesia was reconquered ; 

3° Charles of Loraine retired to hide his shame and sorrow at 
Brussels ; and Frederic allowed his troops to take some repose 
in winter quarters, after a campaign, to the vicissitudes of 
which it will be difficult to find any parallel in ancient or 
modern history. 

22. Old Saxon Steriiholds. Thomas Sternhold (birth uncertain-1549), an 
old English writer, who translated the Psalms into metrical English for church 
use. Macaulay means here the ancient chants, which had been prepared by 
Saxon monks for the people to sing. 



A 



FREDERIC THE GREAT. 87 

The King's fame filled all the world. He had, during the 
last year, maintained a contest, on terms of advantage, 
against three powers, the weakest of which had more than 
three times his resources. He had fought four great pitched 
battles against superior forces. Three of these battles he had 5 
gained ; and the defeat of Kolin, repaired as it had been, 
rather raised than lowered his military renown. The victory 
of Leuthen is, to this day, the proudest on the roll of Prussian 
fame. Leipsic indeed, and Waterloo, produced consequences 
more important to mankind. But the glory of Leipsic must be 10 
shared by the Prussians with the Austrians and Russians ; and 
at Waterloo the British infantry bore the burden and heat of 
the day. The victory of Rosbach was, in a military point of 
view, less honorable than that of Leuthen ; for it was gained 
over an incapable general and a disorganized army ; but the 15 
moral effect which it produced was immense. All the preced- 
ing triumphs of Frederic had been triumphs over Germans, 
and could excite no emotions of national pride among the 
German people. It was impossible that a Hessian or a Hano- 
verian could feel any patriotic exultation at hearing that 20 
Pomeranians had slaughtered Moravians, or that Saxon ban- 
ners had been hung in the churches of Berlin. Indeed, 
though the military character of the Germans justly stood 
high throughout the world, they could boast of no great day 
which belonged to them as a people ; of no Agincourt, of no 25 
Bannockburn. Most of their victories had been gained over 
each other ; and their most splendid exploits against foreigners 
had been achieved under the command of Eugene, who was 
himself a foreigner. The news of the battteof Rosbach stirred 
the blood of the whole of the mighty population from the Alps 3° 
to the Baltic, and from the borders of Courland to those of 



9. Leipsig. In 1813 Napoleon received a crushing- defeat at the battle of 
Leipsig. This was called the " battle of the nations." 

9. Waterloo. Napoleon was defeated at the battle of W 7 aterloo, near 
Brussels, in Belgium, June 18, 1815, by the allied armies of Europe. 

25. Agincourt. At the battle of Agincourt, in 1415, Henry V. of England 
defeated a vastly superior French army. 

26. Bannockburn. Edward II. of England with an army of 100,000 men 
was totally defeated by 30,000 Scotchmen under Robert Bruce. 



88 FREDERIC THE GREAT. 

Loraine. Westphalia and Lower Saxony had been deluged by 
a great host of strangers, whose speech was unintelligible, and 
whose petulant and licentious manners had excited the strong- 
est feelings of disgust and hatred. That great host had been 
5 put to flight by a small band of German warriors, led by a 
prince of German blood on the side of father and mother, and 
marked by the fair hair and the clear bine eye of Germany.. 
Never since the dissolution of the empire of Charlemagne 
had the Teutonic race w T on such a field against the French. I 

roThe tidings called forth a general burst of delight and pride/ 
from the whole of the great family wmich spoke the various,'' 
dialects of the ancient language of Arminius. The fame or 
Frederic began to supply, in some degree, the place of a com- 
mon government and of a common capital. It became a rally- 

15 ing-point for all true Germans, a subject of mutual congratula- 
tion to the Bavarian and the Westphalian, to the citizen of 
Frankfort and the citizen of Nuremburg. Then first it was 
manifest that the Germans w r ere truly a nation. Then first was 
discernible that patriotic spirit which, in 1813, achieved the 

20 great deliverance of central Europe, and which still guards, 
and long will guard, against foreign ambition the old freedom 
of the Rhine. \s^ 

Nor were the effects produced by that celebrated day merely 
political. The greatest masters of German poetry and elo- 

25 quence have admitted that, though the great King neither 
valued nor understood his native language, though he looked 
on France as the only seat of taste and philosophy, yet, in his 
own despite, he did much to emancipate the genius of his 
countrymen from the foreign yoke ; and that, in the act of 

30 vanquishing Soubise, he w T as, unintentionally, rousing the 
spirit which soon began to question the literary precedence of 

8. .Empire of Charlemagne. The Empire of Charlemagne extended 
from the river Ebro in Spain to the Elbe in Northern Germany, a distance 
of almost a thousand miles. 

12. Arminius. An ancient German hero, born in 16 B.C. He entered the 
Roman army and obtained some fame as a soldier. In 9 a.d., indignant at 
the wrongs of his countrymen, he persuaded a Roman army to cross the 
Rhine, where, entangled in the marshes and forests, they were easily 
defeated by the Germans. 

20. Deliverance of Central Europe. At the battle of Leipsig. 



FREDERIC THE GREAT. 89 

Boileau and Voltaire. So strangely do events confound all 
the plans of man. A prince who read only French, who wrote 
only French, who aspired to rank as a French classic, became, 
quite unconsciously, the means of liberating half the Conti- 
nent from the dominion of that French criticism of which he 5 
was himself, to the end of his life, a slave. Yet even the en- 
thusiasm of Germany in favor of Frederic hardly equaled the 
enthusiasm of England. The birthday of our ally was cele- 
brated with as much enthusiasm as that of our own sovereign ; 
and at night the streets of London were in a blaze with ilium- 10 
inations. Portraits of the Hero of Rosbach, with his cocked 
hat and long pigtail, were in every house. An attentive ob- 
server will, at this day, find in the parlors of old-fashioned 
inns, and in the portfolios of printsellers, twenty portraits of 
Frederic for one of George II. The sign-painters were every- 15 
where employed in touching up Admiral Vernon into the King 
of Prussia. This enthusiasm was strong among religious 
people, and especially among the Methodists, who knew that 
the French and Austrians were Papists, and supposed Frederic 
to be the Joshua or Gideon of the Reformed faith. One of 20 
Whitfield's hearers, on the day on which thanks for the battle 
of Leuthen were returned at the Tabernacle, made the follow- 
ing exquisitely ludicrous entry in a diary, part of which has 
come down to us : " The Lord stirred up the King of Prussia 
and his soldiers to pray. They kept three fast days, and spent 25 
about an hour praying and singing psalms before they engaged 
the enemy. O ! how good it is to pray and fight ! " Some 

1. Nicolas Boileau (1636-1711). An eminent French poet and satirist. 
Boileau is the analogue of Pope in French literature. Among his best 
works are The Reading Desk (" Le Lutriu ") and The Art of Poetry (** L'Art 
poetique "). 

16. Edward Vernon (1684-1757). A popular English naval hero. In 
1739 he took Porto Bello from the Spaniards with only six ships. In the 
last century all the country inns had a swinging sign over the door, generally 
bearing the portrait either of the king or of some popular hero. 

21. George Whitfield (1714-1770). An eminent English preacher, and 
founder of the sect of Calvinistic Methodists. " Hume pronounced him," 
says Robert Southey, "the most vigorous preacher he had ever heard, and 
said it was worth while to go. twenty miles to hear him. But perhaps the 
greatest proof of his persuasive powers was when he drew from Benjamin 
Franklin's pocket the money which that clear, cool reasoner had determined 
not to give." See Franklin's own account of this as given in his intensely 
interesting autobiography. 



90 FREDERIC THE GREAT. 

young Englishmen of rank proposed to visit Germany as volun- 
teers, for the purpose of learning the art of war under the 
greatest of commanders. This last proof of British attach- 
ment and admiration, Frederic politely but firmly declined. 
5 His camp was no place for amateur students of military science. 
The Prussian discipline was rigorous even to cruelty. The 
officers, while in the field, were expected to practice an ab- 
stemiousness and self-denial such as was hardly surpassed by 
the most rigid monastic orders. However noble their birth, 

io however high their rank in the service, they were not per- 
mitted to eat from anything better than pewter. It was a 
high crime even in a count and field-marshal to have a single 
silver spoon among his baggage. Gay young Englishmen of 
twenty thousand a year, accustomed to liberty and to luxury, 

15 would not easily submit to these Spartan restraints. The 
King could not venture to keep them in order as he kept his 
own subjects in order. Situated as he was with respect to 
England, he could not well imprison or shoot refractory How- 
ards and Cavendishes. On the other hand, the example of a 

20 few fine gentlemen, attended by chariots and livery servants, 
eating in plate, and drinking Champagne and Tokay, was 
enough to corrupt his whole army. He thought it best to 
make a stand at first, and civilly refused to admit such danger- 
ous companions among his troops. 

25 The help of England was bestowed in a manner far more 
useful and more acceptable. An annual subsidy of near seven 
hundred thousand pounds enabled the King to add probably 
more than fifty thousand men to his army. Pitt, now at the 
height of power and popularity, undertook the task of defend- 

30 ing Western Germany against France, and asked Frederic only 
for the loan of a general. The general selected was Prince 
Ferdinand of Brunswick, who had attained high distinction in 



19. Howards and Cavendishes. Two of the greatest English noble 
families. 

28. William Pitt, Earl of Chatham (1708-1778). One of the greatest 
statesmen England has ever seen. As prime minister he governed England 
with singular wisdom and firmness. To Americans William Pitt is of special 
interest, because of the strong opposition he exercised against the coercive 
measures passed by parliament in the beginning of our Revolution. 






FREDERIC THE GREAT. 91 



the Prussian service. He was put at the head of an army, 
partly English, partly Hanoverian, partly composed of mer- 
cenaries hired from the petty princes of the empire. He soon 
vindicated the choice of the two allied courts, and proved him- 
self the second general of the age. 5 

Frederic passed the winter at Breslau, in reading, waiting, 
and preparing for the next campaign. The havoc which the 
war had made among his troops was rapidly repaired ; and in 
the spring of 1758 he was again ready for the conflict. Prince 
Ferdinand kept the French in check. The King in the mean 10 
time, after attempting, against the Austrians some operations 
which led to no very important result, marched to encounter 
the Russians, who, slaying, burning, and w T asting w r herever 
they turned, had penetrated into the heart of his realm. He 
gave them battle at Zorndorf, near Frankfort on the Oder. 15 
The fight was long and bloody. Quarter was neither given nor 
taken ; for the Germans and Scythians regarded each other 
with bitter aversion, and the sight of the ravages committed 
by the half-savage invaders had incensed the King and his 
army. The Russians were overthrown with great slaughter; 20 
and for a few months no further danger was to be appre- 
hended from the east. 

A day of thanksgiving was proclaimed by the King, and was 
celebrated with pride and delight by his people. The rejoic- 
ings in England were not less enthusiastic or less sincere. 25 
This may be selected as the point of time at which the military 
glory of Frederic reached the zenith. In the short space of 
three quarters of a year he had won three great battles over 
the armies of three mighty and warlike monarchies, France, 
Austria, and Russia. 30 

But it was decreed that the temper of that strong mind 
should be tried by both extremes of fortune in rapid succes- 
sion. Close upon this series of triumphs came a series of dis- 
asters, such as would have blighted the fame and broken the 
heart of almost any other commander. Yet Frederic, in the 35 
midst of his calamities, was still an object of admiration to 
his subjects, his allies, and his enemies. Overwhelmed by 



92 FREDERIC THE GREAT. 

adversity, sick of life, he still maintained the contest, greater 
in defeat, in tlight, and in what seemed hopeless ruin, than on 
the tields of his proudest victories. 
Having vanquished the Russians, he hastened into Saxony 
5 to oppose the troops of the Empress Queen, commanded by 
Daun, the most cautious, and Laudohn, the most inventive 
and enterprising of her generals. These two celebrated com- 
manders agreed on a scheme, in which the prudence of the one 
and the vigor of the other seem to have been happily com- 

10 bined. At dead of night they surprised the King in his camp 
at Hochkirchen. His presence of mind saved his troops from 
destruction ; but nothing could save them from defeat and 
severe loss. Marshal Keith was among the slain. The first 
roar of the guns roused the noble exile from his rest, and he 

15 was instantly in the front of the battle. He received a danger- 
ous wound, but refused to quit the field, and was in the act of 
rallying his broken troops, when an Austrian bullet terminated 
his checkered and eventful life. 

The misfortune was serious. But of all generals Frederic 

20 understood best how to repair defeat, and Daun understood 
least how to improve victory. In a few days the Prussian 
army was as formidable as before the battle. The prospect 
was, however, gloomy. An Austrian army under General 
Harsch had invaded Silesia, and invested the fortress of Neisse. 

25 Daun, after his success at Hochkirchen, had written to Harsch 
in very confident terms: "Go on with your operations 
against Xeisse. Be quite at ease as to the King. I will give 
a good account of him." In truth, the position of the Prus- 
sians was full of difficulties. Between them and Silesia lay 

30 the victorious army of Daun. It was not easy for them to 
reach Silesia at all. If they did reach it, they left Saxony 
exposed to the Austrians. But the vigor and activity of 
Frederic surmounted every obstacle. He made a circuitous 
march of extraordinary rapidity, passed Daun, hastened into 



13. James Keith (1696-1758). A Scotch nobleman, exiled from England 
for political reasons. Both he and his brother were great favorites of 

Frederic. 



FREDERIC THE GREAT. 93 

Silesia, raised the siege of Neisse, and drove Harsch into 
Bohemia. Daun availed himself of the King's absence to at- 
tack Dresden. The Prussians defended it desperately. The 
inhabitants of that wealthy and polished capital begged in 
vain for mercy from the garrison within, and from the besieg- 5 
ers without. The beautiful suburbs were burned to the 
ground. It was clear that the town, if won at all, would be 
won street by street by the bayonet. At this conjuncture came 
news, that Frederic, having cleared Silesia of his enemies, was 
returning by forced marches into Saxony. Daun retired from 10 
before Dresden, and fell back into the Austrian territories. - 
The King, over heaps of ruins, made his triumphant entry into 
the unhappy metropolis, which had so cruelly expiated the 
weak and perfidious policy of its sovereign. It was now the 
20th of November. The cold weather suspended military 15 
operations ; and the King again took up his winter quarters at 
Breslau. 

The third of the seven terrible years was over ; and Frederic 
still stood his ground. He had been recently tried by domes- 
tic as well as by military disasters. On the 14th of October, 20 
the day on which he was defeated at Hochkirchen, the day on 
the anniversary of which, forty-eight years later, a defeat far 
more tremendous laid the Prussian monarchy in the dust, 
died Wilhelmina, Margravine of Bareuth. From the accounts 
which we have of her, by her own hand, and by the hands of 25 
the most discerning of her contemporaries, we should pro- 
nounce her to have been coarse, indelicate, and a good hater, 
but not destitute of kind and generous feelings. Her mind, 
naturally strong and observant, had been highly cultivated ; 
and she was, and deserved to be, Frederic's favorite sister. 30 
He felt the loss as much as it was in his iron nature to feel 
the loss of anything but a province or a battle. 

At Breslau, during the winter, he was indefatigable in his 
poetical labors. The most spirited lines, perhaps, that he 

22. A defeat. On May 14, 1806, the Prussians were completely defeated 
by Napoleon in the double battle of Jena and Auerstadt. Napoleon marched 
to Berlin and entered it October 27th. 



94 FREDERIC THE GREAT. 

ever wrote, are to be found in a bitter lampoon on Lewis and 
Madame de Pompadour, which he composed at this time, and 
sent to Voltaire. The verses were, indeed, so good that Vol- 
taire was afraid that he might himself be suspected of having 
5 written them, or at least of having corrected them ; and 
partly from fright, partly, we fear, from love of mischief, sent 
them to the Duke of Choiseul, then prime minister of France. 
Choiseul very wisely determined to encounter Frederic at 
Frederic's own weapons, and applied for assistance to Palissot, 

10 who had some skill as a versifier, and some little talent for 
satire. Palissot produced some very stinging lines on the. 
moral and literary character of Frederic, and these lines the 
Duke sent to Voltaire. This war of couplets, following close 
on the carnage of Zorndorf and the conflagration of Dresden, 

15 illustrates well the strangely compounded character of the 
King of Prussia. 

At this moment he was assailed by a new enemy. Benedict 
XIV., the best and wisest of the two hundred and fifty suc- 
cessors of St. Peter, was no more. During the short interval 

20 between his reign and that of his disciple Ganganelli, the 
chief seat in the Church of Rome was filled by Rezzonico, who 
took the name of Clement XIII. This absurd priest deter- 
mined to try what the weight of his authority could etfect in 
favor of the orthodox Maria Theresa against a heretic king. 

25 At the high mass on Christmas-day, a sword with a rich belt 
and scabbard, a hat of crimson velvet lined with ermine, and 
a dove of pearls, the mystic symbol of the Divine Comforter, 
were solemnly blessed by the supreme pontiff, and were sent 
with great ceremony to Marshal Daun, the conqueror of Kolin 

30 and Hochkirchen. This mark of favor had more than once 
been bestowed by the Popes on the great champions of the 
faith. Similar honors had been paid, more than six centuries 
earlier, by Urban II. to Godfrey of Bouillon. Similar honors 

20. Ganganelli (1705-1774). An Italian cardinal, who became Pope under 
the title of Clement XIV. He took prompt measures to conciliate the 
various foreign courts which his predecessor had offended. 

:«. Godfrey of Bouillon ( 1058-1100). The illustrious leader of the first 
crusade. He took Jerusalem in 1099, and by the unanimous wish of the crusa- 
ders was chosen king of the conquered city, but refused the title of rojalty, 



FREDERIC THE GREAT. 95 

had been conferred on Alba for destroying the liberties of the 
Low Countries, and on John Sobiesky after the deliverance of 
Vienna. Bat the presents which were received with profound 
reverence by the Baron of the Holy Sepulcher in the eleventh 
century, and which had not wholly lost their value even in the 5 
seventeenth century, appeared inexpressibly ridiculous to a 
generation which read Montesquieu and Voltaire. Frederic 
wrote sarcastic verses on the gifts, the giver, and the receiver. 
But the public wanted no prompter ; and a universal roar of 
laughter from Petersburg to Lisbon reminded the Vatican that 10 
the age of crusades was over. 

The fourth campaign, the most disastrous of all the cam 
paigns of this fearful war, had now opened. The Austrians 
filled Saxony and menaced Berlin. The Kussians defeated the 
King's generals on the Oder, threatened Silesia, effected a 15 
junction with Laudohn, and intrenched themselves strongly at 
Kunersdorf. Frederic hastened to attack them. A great bat- 
tle was fought. During the earlier part of the day every- 
thing yielded to the impetuosity of the Prussians, and to the 
skill of their chief. The lines were forced. Half the Kussian 20 
guns were taken. The King sent off a courier to Berlin with 
two lines, announcing a complete victory. But, in the mean 
time, the stubborn Kussians, defeated yet unbroken, had 
taken up their stand in an almost impregnable position, on 
an eminence where the Jews of Frankfort were wont to bury 25 

saying, " he would never accept a crown of gold in a cit}^ where his Saviour 
had worn a crown of thorns. 11 Godfrey is the hero of Tasso's great Italian 
epic, "Jerusalem Delivered; 11 and the poet appears not to have exaggerated 
the merits of a character which was a rare combination of wisdom and 
heroism, with Christian virtues of a high order. 

1. Ferdinando, Duke of Alba (1508-15S2). A celebrated Spanish 
general under Charles V. In 1567 he quelled an insurrection of the Protes- 
tants in the Low Countries; but such was the cruelty with which he treated 
any suspected heretics, that historians have said that his brutality was the 
principal reason why Spain lost the Low Countries. Alba was accustomed 
to boast that in the space of four years he had brought no fewer than 
eighteen thousand persons to the scaffold. 

2. John Sobiesky (16-29-1696). A famous Polish warrior and king. 
Many times he saved his country from Turkish invasions. In 1683 he 
marched with a Polish army to the aid of the Austrians, who were besieged 
in Vienna by a great Turkish army, and with the help of his German and 
French allies expelled the Turks from the country. He was revered in 
Poland as the savior of his country. 

4. Baron of the Holy Sepulcher. Godfrey de Bouillon. This title 
was a crusading order of knighthood. 



96 FREDERIC THE GREAT. 

their dead. Hero the battle recommenced. The Prussian in- 
fantry, exhaust cm I by six hours of hard righting under a sun 
which equaled the tropical heat, were yet brought up repeat- 
ly to the attack, but in vain. The King led three charges in 
5 person. Two horses were killed under him. The officers of 
his staff fell all round him. His coat was pierced by several 
bullets. All was in vain. His infantry was driven back with 
frightful slaughter. Terror began to spread fast from man to 
man. At that moment, the fiery cavalry of Laudohn, still 

io fresh, rushed on the wavering ranks. Then followed a uni- 
versal rout. Frederic himself was on the point of falling into 
the hands of the conquerors, and was with difficulty saved by 
a gallant officer, who, at the head of a handful of hussars, 
made good a diversion of a few minutes. Shattered in body, 

15 shattered in mind, the King reached that night a village which 
the Cossacks had plundered ; and there, in a ruined and de- 
serted farm-house, flung himself on a heap of straw. He had 
sent to Berlin a second despatch very different from his first : 
" Let the royal family leave Berlin. Send the Archives to 

20 Potsdam. The town may make terms with the enemy." 

The defeat was, in truth, overwhelming. Of fifty thousand 
men who had that morning marched under the black eagles, 
not three thousand remained together. The King bethought 
him again of his corrosive sublimate, and wrote to bid adieu 

25 to his friends, and to give directions as to the measures to be 
taken in the event of his death : "I have no resource left" — 
such is the language of one of his letters—" all is lost. I will 
not survive the ruin of my country. Farewell forever." 

But the mutual jealousies of the confederates prevented them 

30 from following up their victory. They lost a few days in loit- 
ering and squabbling ; and a few days, improved by Frederic, 
were worth more than the years of other men. On the morn- 
ing after the battle, he had got together eighteen thousand of 
his troops. Very soon his force amounted to thirty thousand. 

35 Guns were procured from the neighboring fortresses ; and 

22. Black Eagles. The national emblem of Prussia. 



FREDHKIC THE GREAT. 97 

there was again an army. Berlin was for the present safe ; 
but calamities came pouring on the King in uninterrupted suc- 
cession. One of his generals, with a large body of troops, was 
taken at Maxen ; another was defeated at Meissen ; and when 
at length the campaign of 1759 closed, in the midst of a rigor- 5 
ous winter, the situation of Prussia appeared desperate. The 
only consoling circumstance was, that, in the West, Ferdinand 
of Brunswick had been more fortunate than his master ; and 
by a series of exploits, of which the battle of Minden was the 
most glorious, had removed all apprehension of danger on the ic 
side of France. 

The fifth year was now about to commence. It seemed im- 
possible that the Prussian territories, repeatedly devastated by 
hundreds of thousands of invaders, could longer support the 
contest. But the King carried on war as no European power 15 
has ever carried on war, except the Committee of Public Safety 
during the great agony of the French Revolution. He gov- 
erned his kingdom as he would have governed a besieged town, 
not caring to what extent property was destroyed, or the pur- 
suits of civil life suspended, so that he did but make head 20 
against the enemy. As long as there was a man left in 
Prussia, that man might carry a musket ; as long as there was 
a horse left, that horse might draw artillery. The coin was 
debased, the civil functionaries were left unpaid ; in some 
provinces civil government altogether ceased to exist. But 25 
there were still rye bread and potatoes ; there were still lead 
and gunpowder ; and, while the means of sustaining and de- 
stroying life remained, Frederic was determined to fight it out 
to the very last. 

The earlier part of the campaign of 1760 was unfavorable to 30 
him. Berlin was again occupied by the enemy. Great contri- 
butions were levied on the inhabitants, and the royal palace 
was plundered. But at length, after two years of calamity, 
victory came back to his arms. At Lignitz he gained a great 

16. Committee of Public Safety. During the French Revolution, 
from April, 1793, France was governed by a committee composed of about 
ten men. This small body of men was entrusted with absolutely unlimited 
power to govern France as was necessary to the success of the Revolution. 



98 FREDERIC THE GREAT. 

battle over Laudohn ; at Torgan, after a day of horrible car- 
nage, he triumphed over Daun. The fifth year closed, and still 
the event was in suspense. In the countries where the war 
had raged, the misery and exhaustion were more appalling 
5 than ever ; but still there were left men and beasts, arms and 
food, and still Frederic fought on. In truth he had now been 
baited into savageness. His heart was ulcerated with hatred. 
The implacable resentment with which his enemies persecuted 
him, though originally provoked by his own unprincipled am- 

io bition, excited in him a thirst for vengeance which he did not 
even attempt to conceal. "It is hard," he says in one of his 

L letters, " for man to bear what I bear. I begin to feel that, 
as the Italians say, revenge is a pleasure for the gods. My 
philosophy is worn out by suffering. I am no saint, like those 

15 of whom we read in the legends ; and I will own that I should 
die content if only I could first inflict a portion of the misery 
which I endure." 

Borne up by such feelings, he struggled with various success, 
but constant glory, through the campaign of 1761. On the 

20 whole, the result of this campaign w T as disastrous to Prussia. 
No great battle was gained by the enemy ; but, in spite of the 
desperate bounds of the hunted tiger, the circle of pursuers 
w^as fast closing round him. Laudohn had surprised the im- 
portant fortress of Schweidnitz. With that fortress, half of 

25 Silesia, and the command of the most important defiles 
through the mountains, had been transferred to the Austrians. 
The Russians had overpowered the King's generals in Pome- 
rania. The country was so completely desolated that he be- 
gan, by his own confession, to look round him with blank 

30 despair, unable to imagine where recruits, horses, or provisions 
were to be found. 

Just at this time two great events brought on a complete 
change in the relations of almost all the powers of Europe. 
One of those events was the retirement of Mr. Pitt from office : 

35 the other was the death of the Empress Elizabeth of Russia. 
The retirement of Pitt seemed to be an omen of utter ruin 
to the House of Brandenburg. His proud and vehement 



FREDERIC THE GREAT. 99 

nature was incapable of anything that looked like either fear 
or treachery. He had often declared that, while he was in 
power, England should never make a peace of Utrecht, should 
never, for any selfish object, abandon an ally even in the last 
extremity of distress. The Continental war was his own war. 5 
He had been bold enough, he who in former times had at- 
tacked, with irresistible powers of oratory, the Hanoverian 
policy of Carteret, and the German subsidies of Newcastle, to 
declare that Hanover ought to be as dear to us as Hampshire, 
and that he would conquer America in Germany. He had 10 
fallen ; and the power which he had exercised, not always with 
discretion, but always with vigor and genius, had devolved on 
a favorite who was the representative of the Tory party, of the 
party which had thwarted William, which had persecuted Marl- 
borough, and which had given up the Catalans to the ven- 15 
geance of Philip of Anjou. To make peace with France, to shake 
off, with all, or more than all, the speed compatible with 
decency, every Continental connection, these were among the 
chief objects of the new Minister. The policy then followed 
inspired Frederic with an unjust, but deep and bitter aversion 20 
to the English name, and produced effects which are still felt 
throughout the civilized world. To that policy it was owing 
that, some years later, England could not find on the whole 
Continent a single ally to stand by her, in her extreme need, 
against the House of Bourbon. To that policy it was owing 25 
that Frederic, alienated from England, was compelled to con- 
nect himself closely, during his later years, with Kussia, and 



3. Peace of Utrecht. By this peace in 1713 Great Britain withdrew 
from the so-called " grand alliance " against France at the end of the War of 
the Spanish Succession. 

8. Thomas Pelham, Duke of Newcastle (1693-1768). A famous 
"Whig minister of state. He was considered by his contemporaries a "dunce, 
a driveler, a child who never knew his own mind, but he overreached them 
all around," says Macaulay. He was a man with a passionate love of power, 
and a perfect indifference as to whether he got it by fair means or foul. 

16. Philip of Aujou. From 1701 until 1714 all Europe was in arms, 
owing to the dispute about the succession to the Spanish crown. Louis XIV. 
of France gave the crown to his grandson Philip of Anjou, while the rest of 
Europe thought that Austria ought to have it. By the Peace of Utrecht in 
1713 Philip of Anjou was confirmed in his possessions, among which was 
Catalonia, the inhabitants of which province had opposed most bitterly his 
succession to the crown. 



LOO FKKPEKIC THE <;RUAT. 

was induced to assist in that groat, crime, the fruitful parent 
of other greal crimes, the first partition of Poland. 

Scarcely had the retreat of Mr. Pitt deprived Prussia of her 
only friend, when the death of Elizabeth produced an entire 
5 revolution in the politics of the North. The Grand Duke 
Peter, her nephew, who now ascended the Russian throne, was 
not merely free from the prejudices which his aunt had enter- 
tained against Frederic, but was a worshiper, a servile imi- 
tator of the great King. The days of the new Czar's govern- 

io ment were few and evil, but sufficient to produce a change m 
the whole state of Christendom. He set the Prussian prisoners 
at liberty, fitted them out decently, and sent them back to 
their master ; he withdrew his troops from the provinces which 
Elizabeth had decided on incorporating with her dominions ; 

15 and he absolved all those Prussian subjects, who had been 
compelled to swear fealty to Russia, from their engagements. 

Not content with concluding peace on terms favorable to 
Prussia, he solicited rank in the Prussian service, dressed him- 
self in a Prussian uniform, wore the Black Eagle of Prussia oni 

20 his breast, made preparations for visiting Prussia, in order to 
have an interview with the object of his idolatry, and actually 
sent fifteen thousand excellent troops to reinforce the shattered 
army of Frederic. Thus strengthened, the King speedily re- 
paired the losses of the preceding year, reconquered Silesia, 

25 defeated Daun at Buckersdorf, invested and retook Schweid- 
nitz, and, at the close of the year, presented to the forces of 
Maria Theresa a front as formidable as before the great re- 
verses of 1759. Before the end of the campaign, his friend 
the Emperor Peter, having, by a series of absurd insults to the 

30 institutions, manners, and feelings of his people, united them 
in hostility to his person and government, was deposed and 
murdered. The Empress, who, under the title of Catherine 
the Second, now assumed the supreme power, was, at the com- 
mencement of her administration, by no means partial to 

35 Frederic, and refused to permit her troops to remain under his 
command. But she observed the peace made by her husband ; 



FREDERIC THE GREAT. 101 

and Prussia was no longer threatened by danger from the 
East. 

England and France at the same time paired off together. 
They concluded a treaty, by which they bound themselves to 
observe neutrality with respect to the German war. Thus the 5 
coalitions on both sides were dissolved ; and the original ene- 
mies, Austria and Prussia, remained alone confronting each 
(ither. 

Austria had undoubtedly far greater means than Prussia, 
and was less exhausted by hostilities ; yet it seemed hardly 10 
possible that Austria could effect alone what she had in vain 
attempted to effect when supported by France on the one side, 
and by Kussia on the other. Danger also began to menace 
the Imperial house from another quarter. The Ottoman Porte 
held threatening language, and a hundred thousand Turks 15 
were mustered on the frontiers of Hungary. The proud and 
revengeful spirit of the Empress Queen at length gave way ; 
and, in February, 1763, the peace of Hubertsburg put an end 
to the conflict which had, during seven years, devastated Ger- 
many. The King ceded nothing. The whole Continent in 20 
arms had proved unable to tear Silesia from that iron grasp. 

The war was over. Frederic was safe. His glory was be- 
yond the reach of envy. If he had not made conquests as 
vast as those of Alexander, of Caesar, and of Napoleon, if he 
had not, on fields of battle, enjoyed the constant success of 25 
Marlborough and Wellington, he had yet given an example 
unrivaled in history of what capacity and resolution can effect 
against the greatest superiority of power and the utmost spite 
of fortune. He entered Berlin in triumph, after an absence 
of more than six years. The streets were brilliantly lighted 30 
up, and, as he passed along in an open carriage, with Ferdi- 
nand of Brunswick at his side, the multitude saluted him with 
loud praises and blessings. He was moved by those marks of 
attachment, and repeatedly exclaimed, ' ' Long live my dear 
people ! Long live my children ! " Yet, even in the midst of 35 
that gay spectacle, he could not but perceive everywhere the 
traces of destruction and decay. The city had been more 



102 FREDERIC THE GREAT. 

than once plundered. The population had considerably dimin- 
ished. Berlin, however, had suffered little when compared 
with most parts of the kingdom. The ruin of private fortunes, 
the distress of all ranks, was such as might appall the firmest 
5 mind. Almost every province had been the seat of war, and of 
war conducted with merciless ferocity. Clouds of Croatians had 
descended on Silesia. Tens of thousands of Cossacks had been 
let loose on Pomerania and Brandenburg. The mere contr- 
butions levied by the invaders amounted, it was said, to ma- 

10 than a hundred millions of dollars ; and the value of wha 
they extorted was probably much less than the value of what 
they destroyed. The fields lay uncultivated. The very seed- 
corn had been devoured in the madness of hunger. Famine, 
and contagious maladies produced by famine, had swept away 

1 5 the herds and flocks ; and there was reason to fear that a 
great pestilence among the human race was likely to follow in 
the train of that tremendous war. Near fifteen thousand 
houses had been burned to the ground. The population of the 
kingdom had in seven years decreased to the frightful extent 

20 of ten per cent. A sixth of the males capable of bearing arms 
had actually perished on the field of battle. In some districts, 
no laborers, except women, were seen in the fields at harvest- 
time. In others, the traveler passed shuddering through a 
succession of silent villages, in which not a single inhabitant 

25 remained. The currency had been debased ; the authority of 
laws and magistrates had been suspended ; the whole social 
system was deranged. For, during that convulsive struggle, 
everything that was not military violence was anarchy. Even 
the army w T as disorganized. Some great generals, and a 

30 crowd of excellent officers, had fallen, and it had been impos- 
sible to supply their place. The difficulty of finding recruits 
had, towards the close of the war, been so great, that selection 
and rejection were impossible. "Whole battalions were com- 

35 posed of deserters or of prisoners. It was hardly to be hoped 
that thirty years of repose and industry would repair the ruin 
produced by seven years of havoc. One consolatory circum- 
stance, indeed, there was. ~No debt had been incurred. The 



FREDERIC THE GREAT. 103 

burdens of the war had been terrible, almost insupportable ; 
but no arrear was left to embarrass the finances in time of 
peace. 

Here, for the present, we must pause. We have accompa- 
nied Frederic to the close of his career as a warrior. Possibly, 5 
when these Memoirs are completed, we may resume the con 
sideration of his character, and give some account of his do- 
onestic and foreign policy, and of his private habits, during 
'le many years of tranquillity which followed the Seven Years' 
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